Eva Longoria brushed off the rumors about herself and her co-stars on Desperate Housewives feuding, while working on the classic show, in an episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, released on Monday, November 27. Eva, 48, shut down the rumors and called out the sexism of how the show was covered versus shows that had predominantly male casts.
The Harsh Times actress said that her co-stars Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross, and Felicity Huffman were not surprised about the way their show was covered. “I remember, even back then it was a narrative about women, because there were all these shows about men on the air, and nobody was like ‘They’re fighting,'” she said. “They all had such a better handle on fame, on that narrative. I’m like, ‘You guys, they’re saying we’re fighting!’ and they’re like, ‘Yeah, well that’s just a narrative they do [to] women because we’re over 40 in a television show.'”
Over 10 years after the show ended, Eva admitted that people still often ask her if the Desperate Housewives were really fighting, and she said that she forgets that it was a “big thing.” She also revealed that she was excited when she parodied it when she hosted Saturday Night Live. “If it made a skit on SNL, then you knew you were in pop culture. You’ve arrived,” she said.
Despite regular rumors that the stars were fighting, Eva said that they often didn’t hear about the gossip, since they were too busy on the show. Ultimately, she said that much of the feedback both “good and bad” didn’t make it back to the cast, because of how busy they were. “We never could come up for air to really get outside of ourselves. We were only on this set,” she said. “We were in such a bubble with our crew and each other. We could only talk to each other about, like, ‘Doesn’t this suck?’”
Eva starred in all eight seasons of Desperate Housewives, which ran from 2004 to 2012. The series won seven Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for Best Television Series – Comedy or Musical in 2006.