The term “airing your dirty laundry in public” has been taken to a whole new level as TV3 reality TV show Dublin Wives has made the news Stateside, complete with the tell-all tale of one of television’s bitchiest cat-fights… and what the women are actually earning from the show.
American website The Daily Beast have featured a piece on the second series of the show, complete with an insight into the show’s ratings, the women’s earnings and the back-biting row that made the Irish entertainment news.
The article begins: “Their faces a vibrant shade of sunbed orange. Their clothing choices and pushed-up boobs resemble a theatrical caricature of a hooker. And their bitch fights are wild enough to put the fear of God into a pack of stray cats.”
Ouch. Ireland and UK-based entertainment writer Tom Sykes continues by giving an insight into the show’s background and production. The show, based on the US Real Housewives series, is made for a “paltry” $15,000 per episode with a paycheck of just, wait for it, €125 per wife per show. The publicity they and their individual careers receive from the show is invaluable…
Giving a little bit of cultural context to US readers, Sykes explains that, although the Irish are used to British and American spill-all, tell-all reality TV shows, “the cult of public self-revelation is still a somewhat shocking phenomenon in Ireland”. He describes Ireland as such a small country that it is “still possible to feel everybody really does know each other”. Which is perfectly true really…
The Dublin wives from left to right: Lisa, Jo, Danielle, Roz and Virginia
The feature is here to read in full on The Daily Beast if you wish and, although we know each Real Housewives show has their own more-than-obvious stereotypes too, here are the things Sykes said about the women on the Irish show, Dublin Wives:
“Slack-jawed viewers were treated to a vintage display of bitch-fights and back-biting as a row escalated over an alleged remark passed by one of the wives….”
“…their relative lack of media savvy and/or training compared to their counterparts in the U.S. and U.K. shows. As producer Stephen McCormack says: “There is an honesty and a naivety about them. We like the lack of polish.”
“Then there’s the makeup, which makes American newscasters look conservative with the trowels. The thick pancake on Dublin Wives is a kind of secret sixth character—a particularly thrilling, really bad guy who can make a scene-stealing appearance at any moment.”
Ouch, they’ve made it Stateside alright…
Producer Stephen McCormack told The Daily Beast that they are hoping to film a third series of the show soon. After Syke’s intriguing insight, we think the third series of Dublin Wives could experience a spike in interest Stateside…
