Airs: Saturday 2:30PM

Category: Reality

Cast:

The super smash hit that launched a reality lifestyle franchise, The Real Housewives of Orange County focuses on the private lives of the privileged residents of a Southern California elite gated community. Offering a fly-on-the-wall view of the day-to-day existence of the truly decadent and extravagantly casual, this addictive docudrama is a real life soap opera starring the tanned, bleached, and fabulous.

Meet the Cast

JEANA KEOUGH
Jeana Keough is a successful realtor of high-end homes (usually in the millions), whose first career was in Hollywood as a model and actress when she was a Playboy centrefold and one of the models in the ZZ Top videos. Jeana is married to Matt Keough, a second-generation major league baseball player who is now an executive for the Oakland A’s. Matt is often away on business, leaving Jeana to manage the busy household, which includes three athletic teenagers destined to follow in their parent’s footsteps. Eighteen-year-old Shane and 13-year-old Colton are already attracting notice from the MLB (Major League Baseball), and 16-year-old Kara is an accomplished volleyball player. Favorite child Shane recently graduated from high school and is being recruited by the Oakland A’s as a pitcher. And when not on the volleyball court, daughter Kara was a child actress who started acting at three and has appeared in the movie “Outbreak” alongside Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman. All three kids are athletic and accomplished, but also pampered and indulged and know just how to steer things their way, like when Kara manoeuvred a new BMW out of her parents when the window button on her Mercedes was broken, not an unreasonable expectation for a girl living in an exclusive Orange County community.

KIMBERLY BRYANT
Kimberly is a housewife in the traditional sense of the word. She and her husband Scott, an executive with a Fortune 200 company, agreed early on that Kimberly would focus on their children, 13-year-old Bianca and 7-year-old Travis. This means much of Kimberly’s time is spent shuttling the kids between their myriad of activities, which includes tennis, golf, swimming and hula lessons. Kimberly herself is a fitness fanatic, devoting several hours a week mountain biking, taking Pilates classes and surfing. Down-to-earth and direct, Kimberly will be the first person to talk about the common – but usually unspoken – topic of plastic surgery. So far she’s had just one procedure (for breast enlargement), but will it be her only one? After all, this self-proclaimed trophy wife is dealing with the issues of maturity that many women can relate to, and often dread. It was after moving to their exclusive community when Scott turned to Kimberly to request she get breast surgery, after noticing that many of the community’s women were quite well endowed. Unshaken by this request, the upbeat Kimberly was delighted to become a trophy wife for her husband. Kimberly does embody the quintessential Orange County soccer mom stereotype, but this devoted wife and mother is also hard working, smart, articulate, and shares some of the same hopes and fears of many American women. She also runs a TV-free home, and only feeds her family organic foods.

VICKI GUNVALSON
She’s the woman with everything and she’s capable of anything. She has a beautiful home, wears the finest designer clothes, and her pool rivals the Polo Lounge Club. Vicki Gunvalson lives the life of the prototypical supermom. After a non-stop day running a lucrative insurance business out of her home office, she will then turn around and whip up dinner for her family. But even though she clearly calls the shots in business, the line as to who calls the shots at home isn’t as clear. Vicki lives with her second husband, Donn Gunvalson, who is stepfather to her two kids, 19-year-old Michael who prefers to lie in the pool over studying, and 18-year-old cheerleader Briana who just graduated from high school and is headed to nursing school. A self-made woman, Vicki has ambivalent feelings about how hard she wants her kids to work in life. Vicki employs the attractive Lauri Waring, and can get jealous of her good looks, especially when all male focus in on Lauri when the two of them are away together on business. Even though Vicki is happily married and an attractive woman herself, this still bugs her.

LAURI WARING
Lauri Waring used to live in a nearby gated community, but a bitter divorce has led this mother of three to downsize her life tremendously. A former model, Lauri is still a regular at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion parties. But now Lauri is struggling to put the pieces of her once privileged life back together, making ends meet by working in Vicki Gunvalson’s home insurance office. Single mom Lauri faces a variety of parental crises, including argumentative 20- year-old daughter Ashley abruptly moving back home and cramping the family, and 16- year-old son Josh’s trouble with the law. Lauri also has her hands full caring for her youngest child, 7-year-old Sophie. Lauri grapples with her demons and too often makes the wrong choices in life. When it comes to her chaotic love life, she can’t seem to get it right, like when she focuses way too much time on the 23-year-old plumber at a party swimming with wealthy eligible bachelors. It’s a constant effort for Lauri to navigate the choppy waters of her new life while desperately trying to keep her place within the exclusive community. One thing’s for certain – she’s not going down without a fight.

JOE DE LA ROSA
She’s confident and sexy and used to getting what she wants. But lately 24- year-old Jo De La Rosa has been wrestling with a dilemma. She’s found herself at a crossroads with the man she loves and lives with, her fiancée Slade, who is at a different chapter in life. At 36, Slade has two children from two previous relationships – 14- year-old Gavin and 5- year-old Grayson. A dedicated father who shares partial custody of his sons, Slade desperately wants Jo to take on the role of traditional wife and mother. Although Jo loves his sons, she is torn by her desire to have her own career and enjoy being young and partying with her girlfriends. A self-made man with a unique past, Slade was born and raised in Alaska and rode bikes professionally before launching a successful career as an executive in the title insurance industry. He’s ready to settle down with Jo, a strong-willed and assertive young woman who’s questioning her desire to even join the upscale community at all. She loves the money and prestige, but not some of the other things that come with life in the gated community. While her friends are partying, she’s meeting the tennis ladies in their 30s and 40s and feeling that generation gap. She’s also dealing with the bizarre picket fence ideal inside Slade’s head, which basically consists of Jo staying home and cleaning the house. A steep request for a girl who doesn’t even know what Pledge is. Truth is, no one has more fun than Jo in the show, even though she’s torn between life as an engaged grown-up and her real desire to branch out and discover her own potential. Which path will she choose?