Gina Kirschenheiter faced hardships with Shannon Beador during filming on the currently-airing 17th season of The Real Housewives of Orange County.
In a new interview, Gina opened up about what caused her issues with Shannon and explained why she was dodging Heather Dubrow at times. She also denied she used Ozempic to lose weight and reacted to Tamra Judge‘s return to the show.
“I kind of always have been Team Tamra,” Gina admitted on the June 28 episode of Access Hollywood‘s Housewives Nightcap. “She brings that thing and she brings it hard and she certainly brought it this season.”
But Gina, who was thrilled about Tamra’s comeback, doesn’t only love Tamra for what she brings to the series. She also loves that even though her co-star can get a “little unruly and a little crazy” at times, she responds well to communication.
“You can be like, ‘Now you’ve crossed the line with me. I’m gonna push you back past that line.’ [And] she just gets over it. She doesn’t hold grudges,” Gina explained. “She’s just like, ‘I get it. I crossed the line. I’m sorry.’ And then we all move on.’”
“I’ve always been cool with Tamra. She’s always been supportive of me and she makes it easier,” she added.
In addition to the new season of RHOC, Gina has also embarked on another venture: Her new podcast, Orange County, which she claims is “more positive” than other Real Housewives podcasts.
“I love the drama and everything that I’m part of, but it is nice and a little bit refreshing for me for this to be a more pure, positive lane,” she noted.
While claims of Ozempic have been plaguing members of the Housewives franchise for months, with some denying their use of the diabetes medication and others admitting to it, Gina said that when it comes to her weight loss, she did not use Ozempic.
“I’m not on Ozempic and I’m not judging anybody who is,” she stated. “If you wanna put a needle in your body every week and feel like crap all the time, you deserve to be skinny. I don’t wanna feel crappy.”
As for what did prompt her to slim down, Gina said she quit drinking a year and a half ago.
“It was just a lifestyle change for me and it was destress and it was coming out of COVID,” she explained. “I go up and down and I’m normal and I’m healthy. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being on Ozempic. I just think that it’s sort of important to be transparent, especially if you have a platform.”
“I don’t wanna put a message out there like, ‘I just work out and eat vegetables all day and this is how I look like this,’ or the opposite,” Gina continued. “My life is what it is. I don’t work out enough. I certainly don’t drink enough water … Also, I’m proud of that so don’t take that from me. I made a healthy lifestyle change and I was rewarded physically for that.”
Fans have plenty to look forward to on this season of RHOC, including two cast trips, which Gina described as “fun” before explaining why this year’s cast has a much better dynamic than seasons prior.
“I think they were really fun and amazing. It was cool. It was a really great season,” she revealed. “I really enjoyed it. The last few years I understand maybe the casting is a little ughhh. But if nothing else, now with everybody back, all the women have history, we’ve known each other for six plus years. We genuinely know each other. We genuinely have friendships and connections and that makes for genuine entertainment and drama.”
In recent seasons, fans have watched Gina form a bond with Heather. And while their bond stands firm today, Gina admitted to going through growing pains with her castmate when asked if she was “dodging” her throughout the season.
“To a certain extent, yes,” she confessed. “And it’s nothing against Heather. It’s just sometimes when we wrap a season or filming, I need a little decompression. I need some space and sometimes it’s like, Heather’s so nice and she loves to include me and invite me to things, and so I instinctively will sometimes be like, ‘Yes, thank you, I’ll come to that.’ And then [sometimes] I’m like, more real, so when push comes to shove, it’s like, ‘I just don’t really feel like going to that.’”
Gina went on to say that she had a lot going on last summer with her kids and to note that she and Heather have “different lifestyles.”
“Also, it’s like, ‘Thanks a lot, Heather. You started this season just trucking me under the bus here,’” Gina went on. “But I do actually love her and … I really did hurt her feelings … And I did feel bad. I just should’ve given her a little more attention. There were a couple of texts that got a little buried and did bail on like, a lunch, so I get it.”
Regarding her drama with Shannon, Gina said that while she’s known Shannon for “a really long time,” maintaining a relationship with her is “so hard sometimes.”
“I have boundaries and Shannon crossed some boundaries with me this season and it’s tough because although I think we tried to work through them and we still do, I’m still a little upset,” she shared. “But I haven’t seen it too, so I’m kinda in this place where until I see it and I see some of these things that I think you said or I heard or whatever, I don’t really 100 percent know how I fully feel.”
Gina also weighed in on Shannon’s feud with Tamra, which played out in the early episodes of season 17.
“Even though I think Tamra’s delivery is rough, I do think that there’s some truth to what she’s saying,” Gina revealed. “And Shanon’s really good at pushing you to that place where … you kinda look like the one who’s wrong … But there is some truth there.”
RHOC Live Viewing – This is also the live viewing thread for tonight’s new episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County season 17, which airs at 8/7c on Bravo.