Andy Cohen is usually the one asking the questions but the tables were flipped when The Real Housewives executive producer made an appearance on HBO Max’s Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?
Chris Wallace put Cohen in the hot seat when he brought up The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah, who was recently sentenced to 6.5 years in prison after pleading guilty to a telemarketing fraud scheme.
“You’re on the record last November as saying that you hope she would get no jail time,” Wallace said. “And the question I have is, ‘Why would you take her side against the thousands of people she defrauded, including a lot of elderly?’”
Cohen looked perturbed and said, “I think I was hoping she was actually innocent. I wouldn’t have….”
Wallace interjected and reminded the Watch What Happens Live host that Shah had already pleaded guilty at that time.
“That was before she pled guilty, I mean, that I said that, I would think,” Cohen said before Wallace corrected him saying, “No, I think it was after.”
Cohen was without words and only said, “Oh, really? Oh, God.” He then explained he didn’t know what the context was when he said that but he believes it was when fans were asking what was going to happen to Shah on RHOSLC.
The Bravo star agreed with Wallace that Shah should go to jail and reasoned that “sometimes you get to know someone and you get to like them, you hope that they are not guilty of something horrible.”
Wallace ran clips of some of the most memorable scenes of The Real Housewives over the years and subsequently asked Cohen, “Are you at all embarrassed by what you do?”
“No, I’m really not, because it makes so many people happy,” Cohen said, getting defensive over the franchise.
“It can be really confrontational, it can sometimes be something that’s a little difficult to swallow,” he said defending the shows he produces. “But I think it’s also about, in the real great moments, it’s about being a wife, and a mother, and a sister, and a friend and a whole lot more. So, yes, there’s all that [fights] and then there’s a whole lot more.”
Watch the interview in the video posted below.