With season 4 of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City officially underway, fans of the franchise might have noticed that a cast member is missing: the one and only Jennie Nguyen.
Jennie Nguyen joined The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City in its second season, and she had already started to film the third season before Bravo took to Instagram to share that she was fired from the series in January of 2022. Naturally, this left fans of the franchise with just one burning question: Why?
Keep scrolling to find out for yourself…
“Bravo has ceased filming with Jennie Nguyen and she will no longer be a cast member of ‘The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.’ We recognize we failed to take appropriate action once her offensive social media posts were brought to our attention. Moving forward, we will work to improve our processes to ensure we make better informed and more thoughtful casting decisions,” Bravo shared in a post via Instagram.
These “offensive social media posts” consisted of racially insensitive content, primarily posted in the year 2020 (two years prior to her expulsion). Nguyen shared a series of messages and images via social media that supported the “White Lives Matter” movement, describing those who participated in the “Black Lives Matter” protests as “thugs” and “violent gangs.” In addition to this, she also posted a series of anti-vaccination content amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Islamophobic content.
When these posts resurfaced, Nguyen deleted them almost instantanously, as well as took to Instagram to share an apology.
“I want to acknowledge and apologize for my deleted Facebook posts from 2020 that resurfaced today. At the time, I thought I was speaking out against violence, but I have since learned how offensive and hurtful my words were… It’s why I deactivated that account more than a year ago and why I continue to try to learn about perspectives different from my own. I regret those posts and am sincerely sorry for the pain they caused,” she shared in a post via Instagram.
Unfortunately for Nguyen, her castmates and viewers alike saw this apology as disingenuous, with Jen Shah admitting that she was “deeply offended by the racially insensitive posts and comments,” Meredith Marks admitting that she was “sickened by [her] co-worker’s racist and prejudicial posts that recently surfaced,” and more.
As mentioned previously, because of the controversy Jennie Nguyen caused, she was ultimately removed from the series once and for all, however, this was not the only instance of racism seen from cast members of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Shortly before Nguyen’s expulsion, Mary Cosby was under fire for calling Mexicans “thugs,” as well as making fun of Nguyen’s “slanted eyes” on the show.
In the future, it appears that Bravo will be making “better informed and more thoughtful casting decisions,” in order for the racist remarks to be put to an end.
While Nguyen is no longer on our television screens, fans of the franchise can catch brand new episodes of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City on Tuesdays via Bravo.
