Actor Donna Mills from series like Knots Landing and daytime soap General Hospital says she draws the line on entertainment when it comes to reality television, especially shows like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Mills recently said she can’t wrap her head around why an actor like Lisa Rinna would dive into it, adding that it would be a hard “no” on her end. She said Rinna is a “lovely woman” but added, “I don’t have any respect for it. For the what they do. I just don’t,” she said on the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast.
Donna Mills did a reality television show, but it was nothing like the ‘Housewives’
Mills admitted she took part in the reality television show, Queens of Drama. She, along with stars like Joan Collins, Vanessa Marcil, Lorenzo Lamas, and more appeared in the 2015 one-season series. The premise was former actors collaborate to create, pitch, and produce a new series with the goal of securing a pilot. Mills said her experience was different on Queens of Drama versus a show like Housewives.
“We were actually trying to do something on the show,” she said. “We were trying to produce a show. And so you got to see how that works. So it had more of a point than just the b*tchiness of Beverly Hills. Friends who are stealing each other’s husbands and whatever else they’re doing. And I must say it was fun. And it really got your improv chops up.”
Queens of Drama had no script but Mills said producers would direct the cast as to what they wanted them to accomplish in a scene. “And because the other people in it are actors and actresses,” she added. “So we all knew that even when we were having a fight or whatever, we were acting. It wasn’t real.”
Social media and reality television are a strange mix, Donna Mills observes
Mills observed that cast members seem to buy into the drama in real life on series like the Housewives. “It seems like in these reality shows these women get into believing it, you know? And that’s kind of weird.” Some series, like RHOBH, have cast members who are established actors like Rinna, Denise Richards, and Garcelle Beauvais.
The cast has drama on the show, but also on social media too. “The social media component is such a big component these days that it’s just really too bad, because again, it doesn’t have anything to do with talent,” Mills remarked.
“And you know, for somebody like me who comes from a whole different era where there was none of this, there was nothing like this,” she said. “You didn’t engage with fans. You didn’t, you know, you didn’t try to become their friend and all that.”
“It’s very different,” she added. “I mean, I have an Instagram account only because my daughter made me do it. And I kind of like it now because I can look back on it and see, different things that I’ve done and, you know, stuff like that. So, so it’s kind of fun, but all the other ones, Twitter, and even Facebook was like, no, I can’t do that.”
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