Andy Cohen denies allegations that he gives favorable treatment to Housewives who do cocaine with him

Former New York City housewife Leah McSweeney recently filed a suit against Cohen and Bravo, alleging them of creating a "rotted" workplace culture

Andy Cohen denies allegations that he gives favorable treatment to Housewives who do cocaine with him
Andy Cohen; Leah McSweeney Photo: Cindy Ord; Jamie McCarthy

Bethenny Frankel opened the floodgates against Bravo with her reality unionization movement, and the lawsuits just keep coming. Last week, former Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills star Brandi Glanville accused Andy Cohen of sexual harassment after the Watch What Happens Live host and Real Housewives executive producer allegedly sent her an inappropriate video. (Cohen subsequently apologized and said the video was “meant in jest.”)

Now, former Real Housewives Of New York City and Ultimate Girls Trip cast member Leah McSweeney has joined the pile-on with her own suit, alleging (via Entertainment Weekly) that Cohen and Bravo—along with parent company NBC, production company Shed Media, and producers John Paparazzo, Lisa Shannon, and Darren Ward— discriminated, harassed, and retaliated against her as a “woman with disabilities, such as alcohol use disorder and various mental health disorders, all in the name of selling drama.”

McSweeney, who relapsed after nine years of sobriety before her first season of the show, has spoken out about Bravo’s “rotted” workplace culture before, including in a bombshell report from Vanity Fair published this past fall, and in a recent, lengthy Instagram post in which she said she was “taking back [her] reality.”

In her suit, McSweeney also alleged that Cohen has a “proclivity” for using cocaine with “Housewives and other Bravolebrities that he employs,” and that he “tends to provide the Housewives with whom he uses cocaine with more favorable treatment and edits.” A rep for Cohen subsequently denied these claims to Entertainment Weekly, calling them “completely false.” The A.V. Club reached out as well, but Cohen’s team did not immediately respond.

In her Instagram post, McSweeney expressed concern that she may become a “pariah” after this, but hopes that her lawsuit “helps reality TV align with its true purpose: to authentically depict the complexities of life while offering genuine support to those who share their journeys.” Fellow-suer Glanville chimed in in the comments, writing, “We are NOT expendable. We are strong women & even stronger together. Time to take our power back.”

McSweeney and Glanville aren’t the only former cast members to sue Bravo in recent months. In January, Caroline Manzo (Real Housewives of New Jersey) also filed a suit against the network, claiming that they “caused” and “allowed” an alleged sexual assault perpetrated against her by Glanville, while the two were filming an episode of Ultimate Girls Trip together. Glanville was not named as a defendant in the suit, but the recent letter from her attorney also claimed that it was a way to preserve evidence preventing “character assassination… since our client is asserting rights that may result in litigation.”

 
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