RHONY alum Leah McSweeney is “looking forward” to taking Bravo down with a major lawsuit and will refuse any settlement offer from the network.
The plot thickens as Leah McSweeney plans to sue Bravo over her discrimination complaint against the network.
On Wednesday, the former RHONY star revealed her plans to sue Bravo in the comments section of one of her Instagram posts.
Leah’s fans commented on her post about being “lawyered up,” with one fan writing: “Miss you on RHONY. Read Vanity Fair. I wish you $$$ in [your] lawsuit. You deserved better by antagonist @bravotv producers!”
The Bravoleb replied: “Thank u; appreciate you. I’m very much looking forward to depositions :).”
A source tells Page Six that Leah plans to go “all the way” with her lawsuit against Bravo and will refuse all settlement offers.
“She doesn’t want money through a settlement,” the insider says. “She wants a trial. She wants [Bravo execs] in front of a jury.”
Leah’s imminent lawsuit will contain “sordid details” from her time on Bravo that the network won’t be able to conceal because they will be in court documents.
“She wants to hold them accountable, but she also wants to move on,” the source adds.
In the recent Vanity Fair expose on Bravo and Real Housewives, the RHONY alum confirmed that she and her attorneys filed the discrimination complaint against Bravo on March 10. In the complaint, Leah claims that Bravo violated the Americans with Disabilities Act while she filmed season 3 of The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip in Thailand.
While talking to Vanity Fair, Leah described the difficult time she endured starring on the Real Housewives of New York franchise. Leah says she relapsed while filming season 12 of RHONY due to the pressure to drink while filming. She also claims that she was forced to miss her grandmother’s death due to a cast trip to the Hamptons.
“It hurt so bad that I was not able to grieve,” she told the magazine. “That I had people not showing me any kind of compassion or humanity regarding it.”
The loss led to a major depressive episode for Leah that resulted in her spending eight days in a psychiatric hospital.
However, a production source insists that Leah was offered help at “whatever day or time [she] need[ed] to be with [her] grandmother.”
The 41-year-old also alleged that Shed Media’s senior vice president of programming and development, Lisa Shannon, told her that Bravo viewers “didn’t like” her because “there was such a stark difference between [her] when [she was] drinking versus this season.”
After “quitting” RHONY, Leah said she agreed to film for season 3 of RHUGT because of the $250,000 paycheck. Yet, shortly after arriving in Thailand, Leah says she was pressured to drink despite her past issues with substance abuse.
“I wish you were still drinking. That’s all,” Real Housewives of Miami star Marysol Patton admitted to texting Leah before the trip to Thailand.
Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Heather Gay then admitted on camera that she wanted to “get Leah drunk” while RHOP‘s Gizelle Bryant asked, “Like, if you drank this week, would that be a big deal?”
Bravo and Shed Media have denied Leah’s claims of discrimination.
“Production spent endless amounts of time accommodating her,” Christie Del Rey-Cone told Vanity Fair of Leah’s “alleged disabilities,” aka her drug and alcohol struggles.
Meanwhile, Leah alleges that Bravo’s team “worked in overdrive to hide the truth” from coming out in Vanity Fair‘s expose.
“Andy Cohen, Bravo, and [production company] Shed all need to give their PR teams a bonus. They worked in overdrive to try to hide the truth,” the RHONY alum told Page Six this week.
A network source shut down Leah’s remarks, “[Bravo’s] PR team only aimed to resolve any inaccuracies that [Vanity Fair] was given.”
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