Yellow flower with episode title

We’re digging into one of the saddest Housewives moments…worse than most of the Bravo divorces we’ve seen… Brandi and Stephanie’s friendship breakup.

In this episode, we discuss Brandi Redmond storylines from Real Housewives of Dallas Season 2:

⚪Brandi vs Stephanie … ⚪Brandi vs Cary… ⚪Brandi vs LeeAnne …

Episode 94 on Spotify

Caitlin: She picked Brian all in her own.

Sharon: yeah, I just really disliked Ryan.

Caitlin: I wonder what he had going for him.

Sharon: I don’t know. Maybe he was gonna be rich.

Caitlin: Yeah.

Sharon: Although, I don’t know, in high school.

Caitlin: How do you know? I thought my husband was gonna be Richard. I’m just kidding.

Sharon: Well, you know, my husband was voted most likely to success.

Caitlin: That’s right. My husband was voted friendliest or something. Aw, that doesn’t make money. That doesn’t make you friends.

Sharon: I wasn’t voted anything.

Caitlin: I wasn’t either.

Sharon: I didn’t exist. We were cool.

Caitlin: We wouldn’t have been in a Real.

Sharon: Housewives Dallas cast, I guess.

Caitlin: Hi, this is Caitlin.

Sharon: And this is Sharon.

Caitlin: And welcome to Real Housewives on Real Housewives, where we unravel housewives story threads and keep the tea blowing.

Sharon: So chic.

Caitlin: Hold onto your charitable donations.

Sharon: This week, we’re digging into Brandi Redmond from the Real Housewives of Dallas season two, which aired August to November 2017.

Caitlin: The verses this week are Brandi versus Stephanie, Brandi versus Carrie, and Brandi versus Leanne. We’ll dig into all these things deeper in a lot of the other episodes as well. So if you feel like you need a deeper journey into some of these, check those out as well. Brandi, is a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, mom of four, who at this time had just had a mommy makeover. She’s married to Brian, who I nicknamed in this one of the worst house husbands, Redmond. She’s known for her potty mouth, and she was 39 when the season aired.

Sharon: True.

Caitlin: All right, let’s talk about Brandi versus Stephanie, because that’s one of the worst things to me in housewives canon. Yes, because you spend all of season one loving Brandi and Stephanie’s friends.

Caitlin: They’re sisters. They’re on the phone all the time. They have the same sense of humor. They drive the little kid car around together, and they’re like, laughing make Jesus juice jokes.

Sharon: Yes.

Caitlin: They go to Oklahoma together on their own trip. Without the other housewives, they seem unflappable. So when we start season two, they haven’t spoken in months. Brandy’s upset that Stephanie said things about her marriage.

Caitlin: Okay, here’s my question now. On the Stephanie episode, we actually read you the Bravo blog as to what Stephanie said. Here’s a little bit of the blog starts with Stephanie talking about her anniversary with Travis.

Caitlin: They have the fancy bracelet and the Rolls Royce. Then she goes into telling a story of them meeting Brandi’s grandfather. Then they go into the fact that Travis and Brian arrived late and drunk to the party. do we think in a way that this is a deflection? Because Brandi can’t go for Brian when Brian is the problem here, Brian shows up drunk. Brian’s the reason their marriage sucks, not Stephanie. Even if Stephanie says your marriage sucks, still not Stephanie’s fault. Nor did she say it. All she said at the end is that it was like watching a slow motion train wreck or car. Yeah, car crash, something like that. But what she was talking about was the fact that, like, her husband was part of the whole drama and.

Caitlin: Just watching Brian come in drunk, she wasn’t saying their marriage was a car crash. Do you think it’s a deflection?

Sharon: I do.

Caitlin: I do.

Sharon: I don’t think Brandy ever says that Brian sucks.

Sharon: Like, she doesn’t want to speak badly about him.

Caitlin: She’s afraid to say anything about Brian.

Sharon: And he sucks.

Caitlin: He sucks. He’s one of the worst house husbands, if not the worst.

Sharon: I can’t stand him. I look at his face and I’m like, I don’t know how you look at him.

Caitlin: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can find good in a lot of people. I think I’m fairly good at that. I can’t find.

Sharon: He’s just a jerk.

Caitlin: He is.

Sharon: And. Yeah, and I think Brandi and I think kind of like you said earlier, I think she took it out on Stephanie.

Sharon: And Brian is probably okay with that. Cause he’s not taking it out on her.

Caitlin: Exactly.

Sharon: I mean, she’s not taking out on him.

Caitlin: You know, because it also would make sense in that way as to why Travis and Brian can’t, like, broker a friendship repair. Because Brian doesn’t want to. Because he’s like. And also maybe like, in the way of the fact that their relationship works. You know, it’s like a Covid thing. Some people’s relationships worked really well in Covid because they didn’t have to deal with any outside factors. Like, so they could just be their own little bubble. Yeah, for some people that was the opposite effect. But I kind of feel like that’s true. When Brian and Brandy have nobody else, then maybe they come together. But the second there’s anybody else, Stephanie, a friendship or whatever, then they don’t work anymore.

Caitlin: And it’s like, well, okay, so he’s happy with her blaming it on, you know, on Stephanie.

Sharon: Yeah.

Caitlin: The other thing I thought was interesting is there’s kind of a juxtaposition in the blog, Stephanie. And this is the only thing that I can. Cause I was trying to think, how does Brandi misread this? Well, Stephanie’s talking about how great, you know, their anniversary is. She gets the fancy bracelet. We see the Rolls Royce. She’s not talking about that to be bragging. That’s how the show showed it. That’s the order that the show aired it in. But Travis is, like, romantic and sweet. And that’s two things that we know Brian is not.

Sharon: Yes.

Caitlin: So she’s seeing that, then she reads the story up against that of her marriage, and her marriage is like, oh, they haven’t had a great anniversary thing. What they show is her husband showing up drunk to one of the most important moments in her life.

Sharon: Yeah.

Caitlin: And so it’s like, I think in that way, she thought Stephanie was saying bad things. But it’s like, Stephanie’s not responsible for how the show’s aired. She’s not responsible that her husband doesn’t suck, and she’s not responsible for the fact that Brian is the most boring pirate real estate lawyer out there. I mean, even he can’t make pirate real estate interesting.

Sharon: I know.

Caitlin: I don’t mean pirated. I mean actually on the sea.

Sharon: Yeah, because he’s not even on the sea or something.

Caitlin: No, it’s not even yachts. It’s like the building yachts use. Like, that’s. And see, that’s how he made it boring. Like, he’s not even, like, a big yacht salesman. He’s like, well, here’s the building where the yachts take a nap.

Sharon: Yeah.

Caitlin: I can sell you that.

Sharon: She should divorce him.

Caitlin: She should. And then they have more kids, and then now she’s really stuck.

Sharon: Yeah.

Caitlin: Brandi and Stephanie meet and make up. We learn that Brandi’s had a miscarriage. That was the hardest thing. That was sad, because we learned that Stephanie couldn’t be there for her during all this, when she’d been there for everything else.

Caitlin: And that brandy, of course, in the mommy guilt that we all do, blames herself for having a mommy makeover and possibly causing it, which we know is not true. And the doctor points out that it’s not true. But that was really hard, and it was nice to see them come back together and be able to, like, have that moment and kind of repair. I don’t quite understand how the repair got there as quickly as it did.

Sharon: I don’t either. I think maybe Brandy probably wanted to repair, but was just too stubborn or something, or was holding on. Stephanie clearly wanted to repair things. So I think it just took Brandy finally just to let go. To let go and do it.

Caitlin: Yeah. Because very quickly she invites Stephanie and Carrie to visit her when she goes to see her grandpa who’s sick in Tennessee, which is back where she’s from. So it’s interesting that all of a sudden she really does kind of flip the coin on Leanne and get back with Stephanie, which we, I mean, we all knew that Leanne was a placeholder. So who wins in Brandi versus Stephanie?

Sharon: I think Stephanie came out looking better. Yeah, I think Stephanie was the more stable one.

Sharon: But I think Stephanie was more hurt than Brandi. It seems like Brandi said she cut Stephanie out cause she was hurt. But I think that she actually hurt Stephanie. Stephanie more.

Caitlin: I think. So Brandi held the cards.

Sharon: I guess so.

Caitlin: In that way. Yeah, I would agree with you. But obviously we all like Stephanie better.

Sharon: Yeah, that’s true.

Caitlin: Call us spade a spade. Okay, let’s talk about Brandi versus Carrie. So Brandi, I think all of this stems from Brandi’s jealous of Carrie and Stephanie’s friendship. But I don’t think it’s fair because Brandi thinks that she’s being replaced by Carrie and Stephanie’s heart. Okay, but how did that happen? Like, why did she get pushed in that direction?

Sharon: Right. You stop talking to her, you cut her off.

Caitlin: So she made a new friend.

Caitlin: I mean, I think we know who’s born here. But then Brandi does a lot of kind of not cool things to carry. And it’s interesting because Stephanie says it kind of sounds more like Leanne than it sounds like Brandy, which is interesting because it is kind of true. And it sort of, it’s like maybe Stephanie brings out the really good side in brandy of what’s there, the small amount. And then Leanne does the opposite. Like she’s the bad angel, you know, or the devil in the angel. because it seems like when Brandy’s hanging out with Leanne, she’s much more, she’s even more biting and like, m cruel than she might normally be. Brandy tells Carrie about, Leann’s surgical threats, and then that creates a whole problem, with Leann. So up until that point, they’d been really good friends. And then branny kind of starts to turn.

Sharon: Yep.

Caitlin: And then she turns the table on Leigh Ann. Brandy does go up against Carrie, though, and say that Carrie was the nanny, which she wasn’t supposed to say. so it’s kind of interesting. Do you think that Brandi and Carrie actually have a friendship. I’m not sure they do.

Sharon: Not without Stephanie.

Caitlin: Yeah, she’s absolutely the necessary one.

Sharon: I don’t see them hanging out.

Caitlin: Yeah, they’re not getting together and talking plastic surgery.

Sharon: Exactly.

Caitlin: Well, we know that for sure.

Sharon: I think that they will be hang out with each other just because they have to.

Caitlin: Do you think that Brandi would have told Carrie about Leigh Ann’s threats that she made, the whispered ones about the roundup and all that if she hadn’t repaired things with Stephanie? Like, if she just had Leanne as a friend and that’s it.

Sharon: Ah. Cause I feel like she was still friends with Leanne.

Caitlin: No, I think she did it justice. Not because she cared about. Very safe.

Sharon: Exactly. Oh, yeah. Absolutely not.

Caitlin: Or Mark’s, you know.

Sharon: Yeah.

Caitlin: Practice and reputation. She didn’t care about that.

Sharon: His activities at the roundup.

Caitlin: Exactly. so who wins in Brandy versus Carrie? I kinda don’t know where this lands at.

Sharon: Oh, this is too.

Caitlin: It’s a messy fight because there’s no one’s really strong enough to carry either thing. Carrie.

Sharon: Yeah.

Caitlin: To carry anything through, and no one’s really strong enough to take the lead in anything. So it’s more just kind of like, it’s a wash. It’s kind of like kids in that like little knit, knit back car seat fight. So yeah, let’s call it a wash.

Sharon: And I don’t think they’re important to each other either. No, like, I don’t even think they.

Caitlin: There’s not much at stake.

Sharon: Exactly. That’s it.

Caitlin: Yeah. Okay, let’s talk just briefly about Brandi versus Leanne. We go into this much more in depth in our Leanne episode.

Caitlin: Okay, let’s start with this. What does Brandi get out of her friendship with Leann?

Sharon: She needs someone to talk to. She’s used to talking to Stephanie all the time. And so Leanne, she needs someone to take that place.

Caitlin: Do you think Leanne’s a good listener?

Sharon: I think Leanne probably can be a good listener. Cause I think if, I think Leanne can be manipulative, if she wants you to, like, I think she’ll tell you what you wanna hear.

Caitlin: Do you think she kinda listens, looking for things she can hold against you?

Sharon: Oh, probably, yeah, I kinda feel that.

Caitlin: Yeah. I mean, I guess I feel like Leigh Ann’s just a convenient friendship.

Caitlin: Because they fought so much last season, they hated each other, and then it’s sort of like the friend of my enemy kind of a thing. Almost it’s like, well, I guess we’re both in the same boat, so we might as well make the best of it. Do you think that if they hadn’t made up, could they have carried their friendship through the whole season?

Sharon: Brandi and Leann?

Sharon: I think they could have.

Caitlin: Yeah.

Sharon: I think Brandi did kind of turn on Leann.

Caitlin: Mm She did.

Sharon: Like, I think that was kind of okay, I don’t like Leann, but that was kind of not nice.

Caitlin: It was not nice.

Sharon: I don’t know that Leann’s friendship intentions were pure.

Caitlin: No.

Sharon: But what she did was not, like, a great thing to do. So I think they could have stayed friends. I think Leanne would have stayed friends with her.

Caitlin: Cause she was there when she needed a friend. And Leanne did have D’Andreas, so it’s not like she maybe needed Brandy as much as Brandy needed Leanne.

Sharon: Exactly.

Caitlin: But it didn’t work out in either person’s favor. Yeah, I guess. Who wins then, in Brandy versus Leann?

Sharon: I don’t know. I guess Brandi comes out looking better, especially because Stephanie looks good. So if you’re with Stephanie, you get the Stephanie, you know, because your reputation is everything. Charity work.

Caitlin: That’s right.

Sharon: So she’s with Stephanie, so she ends up looking better for that alone.

Caitlin: And like you said, I think maybe, and, it’s hard to say this about Leanne, but maybe she did get a little more hurt by Brandy. She was kind of abandoned by Brandi. She was turned on by Brandi.

Sharon: She was abandoned by her mother.

Caitlin: She was abandoned by your mother. I don’t know if you know that, but she’s never mentioned it.

Sharon: Yeah. We seem like such tricks.

Caitlin: We are. Leanne’s therapist is gonna write us a nasty, but yeah, I kind of think Brandi too.

Sharon: Mm

Caitlin: All right. You know what’s interesting to me is, what do you think? I’m not quite sure I understand why Brandi makes it through all the seasons. Like, again, Stephanie doesn’t have a lot of drama, but she’s so likable. And I guess I think you’re right. I think what it is is that Stephanie carries Brandi through. If she had not repaired her friendship, I don’t know that she would have lasted more seasons in Dallas. I mean, I guess she brings the drama, and I guess she’s willing to spill the tea.

Sharon: She does bring the drama. She’s willing to be kind of, extreme. Like think on their vacation, she brought the toy.

Caitlin: Stuff like that. Yes.

Sharon: So she’ll do. What do you call it?

Caitlin: Yeah.

Sharon: Hijinks.

Caitlin: Right? Yeah. She’s hijinked and she’s unpredictable.

Sharon: Yeah.

Caitlin: And that’s good in reality tv. The other thing, I guess, is that she just. Yeah. Like, she does. She’s. She’s.

Sharon: She’s not as likable.

Caitlin: She’s just not as likable. Exactly. I’m trying to remember because I do feel like I liked her more in the first watch. But I think, again, you’re right. I think it’s the Stephanie bum.

Sharon: It is.

Caitlin: Yeah. She’s gotta stay friends with Stephanie. No one’s gonna look at her.

Sharon: And now they don’t. Don’t they not see each other as much anymore?

Caitlin: They don’t. They live further away from each other or something, which live in the same place. again, I sort of feel like there is something between Brandi and Bryant where they have to kind of be isolated for their friend or their marriage to work.

Sharon: I could totally.

Caitlin: And that seems a little scary, but I think it’s true.

Sharon: Yeah.

Caitlin: All right, that is our episode on Brandi Redmond. Remember to join our Patreon if you wanna hear our yearbook episode for Real Housewives of Dallas, season two. Remember, housewives bring the drama, but we bring the receipts.

Sharon: Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button. If you’d like to help support us, please share it with others and leave a rating and review. Also visit us on Instagram and Twitter, both h on RH for fun pictures and polls, or email us at, rhonrhpodcast@gmail.com. thanks again, and remember to stay out of the shade.