Gina Kirschenheiter is questioning her friendship with Heather Dubrow.
After watching their drama play out on the Real Housewives of Orange County amid Heather’s feud with newbie Katie Ginella, 40, Gina, also 40, is voicing concern that her relationship with Heather, 55, could be one-sided. Plus, she insists she had Heather’s back amid Katie’s paparazzi claims and considers a face-off at the reunion.
“Honestly, it is starting to upset me in real time now because I’m like, ‘Wow, I couldn’t have had her back more,’” Gina shared on the August 22 episode of Page Six’s Virtual Reali-Tea podcast.
As RHOC fans have seen, Katie accused Heather of calling the paparazzi on herself and her husband, Dr. Terry Dubrow, 65, in an effort to silence rumors of marriage drama and cheating rumors.
Although Katie also shared “proof” in the form of a text confirmation, Heather denied the allegation and accused Gina of failing to take a stand against Katie on her behalf. However, according to Gina, she did all that she could to keep Katie from bringing the issue up on camera, and she gave Heather a heads-up as soon as she realized that Katie did not adhere to her advice.
“I was communicating directly to Katie that I thought this was all not valid, the stuff she was bringing up against Heather,” Gina recalled. “And you see Katie already admit that at the very beginning I told her not to do this … Honestly, I’m hurt by both of them.”
Looking back, Gina said she is “the only one” who backed Heather’s claim that she did not call the paparazzi.
“I did not do this to Heather. Katie did this to Heather. In fact, I tried to stop Katie from doing this,” she continued. “[And] honestly, since last year, I’m the only one who believes her — who consistently believes her and yet I’m still the one who did something wrong.”
While Gina said she has “great” communication with Heather, she couldn’t say the same for Heather’s communication with her.
“Part of what I think I’m realizing myself is that any time I sense that she is going to be upset about something — whether it’s something I’ve done or somebody else — I’m concerned about her feelings, I’m picking up the phone and calling her,” she noted, adding that her doing so is “not reciprocated” by Heather.
Instead, Gina said Heather rarely calls or texts her when things come up “that are upsetting” to her.
“Watching between last week and this week’s episode and seeing how it’s all played out, I am upset about it,” she admitted. “It’s a tricky mess, man. It’s tough.”
Gina went on to say that she does want to mend things with Heather because she “genuinely cares” about her. But she’s not sure if she’ll do it before or after the reunion.
“It’s interesting too because we have [the] reunion coming up. We still have to have all these conversations, so it’s like, ‘Do I have these conversations now? Do we have them there?’” she shared. “I like to have these constructive conversations, so hopefully we can have that. But Heather’s very sensitive, so I feel like I operate around that sensitivity a lot. At a certain point, it just gets to be too much.”
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 18 airs Thursdays at 9/8c on Bravo.