If you’ve ever wondered how much of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is truly spontaneous, Lisa Rinna’s recent revelations peel back the curtain in a big way. The actress and former cast member, who left the show after season 12, recently opened up about the heavy production work that goes into crafting the show’s drama.
On her Let’s Not Talk About The Husband podcast, Lisa explained, “There’s a lot of people behind the scenes, a lot of people that make a show like that work. It looks very effortless.” She detailed how events that seem casual on camera are actually meticulously planned. “You see us, say, at a lunch scene. It’s set up before, everybody gets an email saying that it’s coming up on Saturday, maybe in two weeks … You know that you’re going to someone’s house, you’re going to show up at this time. They send cars for you to get driven there because they don’t want you to drink and drive.”
She went on to describe the production’s strategy during filming: “There’s usually three cameras around you. It’s usually set up around an event or a lunch or a party. There’s a lot of pre-planning that goes on. There’s a lot of producers … It can go on for hours at a time … You never really know when it’s going to end.”
Lisa also revealed that producers manage the timing of cast arrivals on purpose. “They decide they want this person here first. So there’s planning in that kind of stuff,” she said. “There was waiting in the car a lot of times. Then they come out to your car, they mic you in your car, they have to put a mic on your back, and then they wait for something to happen.”
Her husband, actor Harry Hamlin, added insight into the editing process: “The amount of film that is actually run through those cameras relative to the amount that shows up on the TV screen … the editors go through hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage to find 42 minutes of film.” Lisa expanded on this, revealing the intense behind-the-scenes effort: “I feel so sorry for those editors. They literally have somebody in a back room so let’s say we’re filming at someone’s house, they would take a little back room and set up a monitor, and there’s somebody there writing down everything everyone is saying in a scene. They figure out what to use and where to go, and keep track.”
In addition to the filming process, Lisa described how producers tailor storylines based on cast members’ real lives. “The producers come to your house right before you start filming. They sit down with you at the beginning of the season to ask where you are in your life, what’s going on, with your kids, with your work, whatever,” she said. “They’re looking for what’s going on in your life, because that’s what’s going to … become your storyline, basically.”
Despite the elaborate production, Lisa admitted that cast members themselves don’t always know what will unfold on screen. They film for about four months with “no idea what’s going to happen.”
This candid glimpse behind the scenes challenges the idea that reality TV is purely spontaneous. Instead, it’s a carefully constructed performance shaped by producers, editors, and endless hours of footage — all aiming to deliver the drama viewers crave.
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