Bravo said, ‘Hold my racism!’—and cast BB15’s Aaryn. No, thanks.

A few weeks ago, Bravo resurrected Flipping Out and its star, Jeff Lewis, who’s attempting his third reality TV comeback since he torpedoed his first show.

Jeff Lewis’s toxicity was clear on Bravo and outside of his show, where he continued his abusive behavior, including using his radio show to go after his ex. Then he underlined his awfulness with some extensive racism at the start of the pandemic.

This week, Bravo said, Hold my racism! and gave Big Brother 15’s Aaryn Gries, now Aaryn Williams, a starring role on its new show that’s all about “conservative values.” The network’s press materials said Small Town Trouble: Texas…

follows a charming yet unconventional group of wives, mothers and social insiders – Aaryn Williams, Alli McAnelly, Annari Uys, Gabby Hernandez Huffman, and Hailey Head, alongside their respective husbands Nick Williams, Blake McAnelly, Duan Uys, Jordan Huffman, and Josh Marsalis – as conservative values of small-town life collide with forbidden attraction, messy friendships, and shocking secrets.

Aaryn was one of many cast members during the fifteenth season who immediately started saying racist, homophobic, and sexist things. She brutally and casually directed stereotypes and slurs toward her fellow players. I believed her when she said “I do not remember saying those things”; the ease with which she said them suggested it was common for her.

Aaryn was held to account by Big Brother host Julie Chen in a way that led me to call her Big Brother’s racism scapegoat—she absolutely deserved to be confronted with her own words, but others didn’t get the same treatment, and others said horrific things that season. Plus, CBS’s summer show has spent years covering up racism and homophobia.

Since then, Aaryn—For fuck’s sake, her name is Aaryn! Just one extra A!—has become a content creator. She’s married and homeschools four kids, turns that life into video content.

And now she’s reached the pinnacle of personality reality TV: a Bravo show. Bravo’s bio for Aaryn 1) makes her into a victim and 2) addresses her past behavior in the most oblique way possible:

Aaryn Williams is polarizing, magnetic and often at the center of the drama. A content creator who was publicly outed as bisexual, she’s built a new life on her own terms with her incredibly supportive husband, Nick, and four daughters whom she homeschools. Having openly reckoned with her complicated past, Aaryn is focused on personal growth, owning her mistakes and becoming a better version of herself.

“Complicated past” LOL. “Owning her mistakes”? Sure, Jan. After the show, she said the right things—while pursuing TV opportunities. I could find no evidence of her being “publicly outed as bisexual,” but perhaps that’s because no one cared enough to cover it in print.

Amazingly, Aaryn herself said more about her past than Bravo, posting on Instagram, “I understand why people are concerned to see me on TV again.”

But as recently as three years ago, Aaryn was accusing the show of ambushing her with “little clips of my worst moments.” Earlier, she wrote off what she said as “jokes” she didn’t realize were offensive because of her “bubble.” Her interviewer, Lara Trump, blames this on how “disingenuous the mainstream media is” as Aaryn nods.

As someone who grew up in an era of casual racism and homophobia, and internalized a lot of that, I’m open to the idea that people can grow and change, as I hope I have.

I believe change is possible even for those who do and say awful, horrible things on TV again and again. But that Lara Trump interview, 10 years after Big Brother 15, sure didn’t show me any understanding of what she did wrong, never mind evolution. So why is Aaryn being platformed?

Reality TV shows and networks recycle and bring back cast members because they bring existing storylines and fan bases. The most-popular and most entertaining get talent deals and new shows and opportunities. (For a glimpse at how all that works, read the second half of this story.)

On the simplest level, reality TV stars are celebrities who draw attention. And as attention has fled from linear TV to streaming to YouTube, there’s even more desperation to get attention. The same reason celebrities used to be cast to host every new reality game show is the same reason The Traitors has a “celebrity” cast. It’s all to maximize attention.

And casting Aaryn has certainly drawn attention. What I’ve seen on my feeds is largely negative, the kind of disbelief I’ve felt. But maybe those are my feeds and algorithms. Networks monitor social media conversations and sentiment, but I’m not privy to Bravo’s executives thinking about negative attention.

The dilemma I always face in these situations is what to do about it. Cover what’s happening or ignore it completely?

Ignoring feels like the best option. If people don’t watch Small Town Trouble: Texas, it will go away. That’s the simple math.

That’s why I ultimately decided not to review the new Jeff Lewis show, and am just ignoring it. Well, except now, and last year when it was announced.

The trouble for me is that, often, ignoring something completely allows space for the only voices to be uncritical ones. Maybe some Bravo viewers have no idea who Aaryn is, and don’t care, and will just tune into whatever Texas mess she, her fellow cast members, and the producers create.

But the other option isn’t great, either. By covering, I don’t mean the practice of turning every late-night toilet tweet into a headline, or every unfounded assertion into a news story. I mean critical coverage that gives context and analysis. Not amplifying, but working to turn down the volume using information.

Then again, Entertainment Weekly gives context, but that context does Bravo’s PR work for it, calling Aaryn simply “controversial” and reprinting her non-apology (“Being Southern, it’s a stereotype and I have said some things that have been taken completely out of context and wrong and I do not mean to ever come off racist”).

Anyone could read that and just shrug. Should they have quoted her? I don’t think so. I certainly don’t want to reprint everything Aaryn said 13 years ago, potentially letting her words cause more harm. Yet maybe my summary was insufficient to capture her behavior.

Six years ago, Bravo fired four Vanderpump Rules cast members for off-camera racist behavior. And now on-camera racist behavior isn’t enough to stop someone from being cast.

Did they think we wouldn’t notice? Unlikely. Did they develop this show as the government kidnapped people of color and decided racism was back in vogue? Do they think the climate has changed, that we’re all okay with this now?

I’m still not sure of the right combination of ignore/critique. But whatever I do in my writing and coverage, I want to make it clear that I am not okay with it now, or ever.

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