Despite facing a ton of backlash from fans and former co-stars over their unexpected reunion on May 3 — amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic — the cast of The Real Housewives of Orange County “didn’t see anything wrong” ignoring social distancing guidelines. A source close to the cast told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY, “Kelly [Dodd], Shannon [Beador], Emily [Simpson] and Braunwyn [Windham–Burke] got together last weekend on their own and filmed. Everything was self-filmed and it was actually the ladies’ idea to do it. The ladies hadn’t seen each other in person since March, when Bravo stopped filming [due to the coronavirus].”
Most of the initial criticism from fans came after the ladies posed for Instagram photos and stood just inches away from each other, even though they were wearing masks that highlighted the social-distancing guideline of keeping six feet apart at all times. Furthermore, Kelly Dodd has been flying back and forth from NYC, where her fiance Rick Leventhal lives, to Orange County, where she resides with her daughter, Jolie, according to videos she’s posted on Instagram, so she’s been exposing herself to all kinds of germs along her travels. Even so, our sources say that the ladies didn’t care about any of that when deciding to get together. “The ladies from RHOC were not at all concerned to be with Kelly Dodd last weekend. Kelly came to town for a little over a week from New York to see Jolie and her mom. The ladies have all been staying home and didn’t see anything wrong with what they did. They’ve all stayed in communication on text daily and really missed Kelly,” one source told us.
Another source added, “[The cast] loves Kelly dearly. They feel Kelly is entitled to do whatever she wants to do just like they are when it comes to social distancing and her beliefs, but nobody was worried. They’ve really missed being together and filming and can’t wait to get back together when this is over, as they were really just getting going [on Season 15].”