Not so long ago, Heather Gay was struggling to reclaim her sense of self. She’d spent most of her adult life as a devoted wife, mother and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Then her marriage fell apart, and with it her entire identity.
“I was just set out to pasture. I had no plausible hope for the future. I was just trying to be a good mom and morally upright citizen, turn my face to the wall and die. That, literally, was the plan,” she said.
Then Bravo came calling. Gay was cast in " The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” which premiered in 2020 and distinguished itself by looking at how the women in the cast were influenced by organized religion, particularly the LDS church.
Gay became the show’s breakout star — the smart, self-aware and hyper-relatable one who was quick to share her insecurities or crack a self-deprecating joke.
She wasn’t model thin, didn’t dress in head-to-toe Chanel or travel with a glam team. She did, however, get very excited about eating meat on a stick and sometimes wound up with her head in the toilet after drinking too many espresso martinis.
Reality TV can be a lot of things — a bid for attention, a cash grab. But for Gay, it turned out to be a calling.
“‘Housewives’ rescued me. It gave me a second lease on life,” she said before attending a watch party for Season 5.
She has leveraged her popularity by writing a bestselling memoir, “Bad Mormon,” with a second book, “Good Time Girl,” due in December.
