Heather Dubrow, 53, has had a firecracker of a season returning to The Real Housewives of Orange County, but apparently there’s even more exciting drama to come! “I’ve never ended a season like this before so that was sort of weird and interesting and cool,” the 53-year-old stated during an EXCLUSIVE interview with HollywoodLife while promoting her new show with husband Terry Dubrow, 7 Year Stitch. “And then the connectivity between the cast and the real relationships between several cast members is such an amazing foundation to then move forward with for the next season. I have no idea where it goes from there, but it’ll be interesting to see.”
Heather also revealed she “invited” Tamra Judge, 54, to an event while filming, but it “didn’t work out” in the end. “I asked her to come back this year,” Heather stated, adding how she still texts with the RHOC alum and lauded her “amazing run” on the show. “I think that one of the things the audience was looking for was a connectivity between the cast,” she shared. “I haven’t watched since I’ve been gone but my understanding is that really hasn’t been there, so I feel like this season has been a very transitional season and by that respect, and by the end of the season, I think the audience is gonna be really happy with where it ends.”
The mom-of-four went on to share how she and Terry were already filming for their new E! show, which follows couples on the brink of divorce, when she had that deep conversation with Dr. Jennifer Armstrong about her flailing marriage with husband Ryne Holliday. “What’s so crazy about it is we’ve been working on this show for two years because the pandemic kept pushing it back. We had a weird art-imitating-life-imitating-art moment,” she shared. “Terry and I were actually filming [the show] at the same time we were filming Housewives and what was so crazy about it was I would sit down with Jen and we we would start talking and I’d be like, ‘My gosh, they should be on 7 Year Stitch, this couple!'”
Heather went on to share how, when inviting Jennifer and Ryne to dinner with another successful couple to emphasize a “really great dynamic,” things “didn’t go exactly as planned.” We’ll have our eyes peeled to see what went down!
As for their new show, Terry shared the game plan: separating couples for seven weeks to “identify their problems, whether it’s financial, intimacy, physical, relationship issues — whatever,” he noted. “We’re exposing them to the world’s best experts to help them fix whatever problems they have,” he added, noting they chose the timeline because “it takes four weeks to break a habit and three more weeks to cement in those new changes.”
“They get back together and then, at the end, they can see what they each look like and how they have changed and they decide whether or not to stay together or break up and move on, which may or may not be a good thing,” he continued.
“With Terry and I … people call us ‘couple goals’ and [ask] ‘how did you survive the reality show curse?” Heather laughed. “You’ll hear people say, ‘If I had their money I could be fine too.’ It’s not about money, it’s about working on your relationship. But it’s also about resources, and that’s where Terry and I come in.”
She continued, “We [want to] help other couples have what we have and use our resources and give them to these couples and see how that works. We’re opening our rolodexes and giving them the best therapists, and trainers and nutritionists and everything to do this complete internal/external makeover on themselves.”
7 Year Stitch premieres Tuesday, March 1 at 10:00pm ET/PT on E!