Mary Cosby is back in the spotlight, and this time it has nothing to do with snowflakes or confessionals.
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star is facing explosive accusations tied to her church in a new TLC documentary that features former members speaking out about alleged financial pressure, emotional manipulation, and deeply personal grievances that have lingered for years.
The upcoming docuseries, The Cult of the Real Housewife, includes interviews with ex-congregants from Faith Temple Pentecostal Church, where Cosby and her husband, Robert Cosby Sr., served as leaders. Among them is Ernest Enoch, who addressed a leaked 2020 audio recording of Cosby criticizing her congregation for giving her only 14 birthday cards and questioning the amount of money she received.
“I was there when Mary complained about the 14 birthday cards,” Enoch said. “I was always there. I’m the organist. I gave this chick a card with $1,000 in it. Ask me if she said thank you.”
Enoch and his sister Rosalind also alleged that Cosby and Cosby Sr. repeatedly asked church members for what they described as “heave offerings,” which they claim escalated over time.
“They were going to have them every six months,” Rosalind said. “It started to increase over time. We could’ve just had a heave offering meeting and then in another week or two we’re having another meeting where we’re being told there’s an emergency and they need $100,000 and they need it by Thursday. The worst announcement you could hear when you walked into that church is, ’Tell everybody don’t leave. We need to have an emergency saints meeting.’ You knew it was going to be about money.”
According to Rosalind, these meetings allegedly came with added pressure. She claimed ushers were instructed to stand by the doors during heave offering discussions and said Cosby and her husband would even accept donations via credit cards.
“There were times that I would give $5,000,” Rosalind said. “It was a lot. This money is getting bigger and bigger. There were people cashing out 401(k)s, losing homes. It got to be a financial embarrassment for some.”
Cosby has not directly responded to the specific claims made in the documentary. However, when asked about the project during BravoCon in November, she dismissed it outright.
“It’s horrible, that’s what I think, and it’s not true,” she said.
The documentary also revisits a controversial moment from RHOSLC season 2, when Cosby spoke to Whitney Rose’s daughter about a car accident involving a member of her church.
“One of [the] members in our church, their daughter had a crash. [It was] last night and she was ejected from the sunroof,” Cosby said on the show. “She fell down into a neighborhood [which was a] 30 feet drop off the freeway. Wear your seatbelt.”
The woman Cosby referenced was Maikel Enoch, who died in 2021 after being ejected from her vehicle’s sunroof during a rollover crash. Her father, Michael Enoch, also appears in the TLC doc and shared his reaction to Cosby bringing up the tragedy on reality TV.
“How did it make me feel? I was angry. That was an attack on me and my daughter. You have to be one miserable human being to go that low,” he said. “Why are you speaking on my daughter, anyway? You didn’t send condolences.”
Michael added that he was relieved his daughter never heard the comments.
“I was glad that my daughter didn’t have to hear it,” he said. “It’s unfortunate for my daughter that she loved Mary and Robert. She loved the church. She kept a doll that Mary bought her when my daughter was a little girl. When I went to clean out her place, she still had that doll.”
According to Michael, Cosby allegedly instructed church members not to donate to fundraising efforts intended to help the Enoch family following Maikel’s death.
The three-part documentary The Cult of the Real Housewife is set to premiere Thursday, Jan. 1, at 8 p.m. ET on TLC. All episodes will be available to stream the following day on HBO Max and Discovery+.
