Meredith Marks on Britani Feud, Lisa Barlow Friendship

Meredith Marks was in the hot seat during the three-part reunion of Season 6 of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” which concluded on Tuesday. Bravo’s reunion host (and the franchise’s executive producer) Andy Cohen pressed Marks throughout — about that infamous airplane ride, her relationship with alcohol and her accusation that cast member Britani Bateman “had supported a bigot.”

Something about him being with a woman in an Uber. First of all, let me be very clear, he has never taken an Uber in Ohio. When he was living there part-time, he had a car, and he wasn’t even in Ohio anymore when this Uber thing supposedly happened. Seth has been living and traveling with me over the last year. He’s been working completely remote. That’s what we should have been talking about. That’s the real story here. For the first time in our marriage, we are fully together 24/7.

During the reunion, it got heated between you and Heather Gay. She said that your friendship is over. Where do you stand with her now?

I say, “You have been screeching at me for the last two months…” and it’s like, you are not my friend ever again. OK. Well then, I guess we weren’t ever friends. That’s what that tells me. I thought we were, so it’s just sad to me. You showed me who you are.

Where do things stand with you and Bronwyn Newport and Mary Cosby?
In terms of Bronwyn, it’s problematic for me because she claims that I didn’t support her marriage when it came up on the boat. I said, “I don’t know what you guys are talking about, but I support you, and I wouldn’t make yourself vulnerable to this right now.” I don’t know what else I was supposed to do. Am I supposed to end my friendship with Lisa because Bronwyn didn’t like what Lisa said about her marriage? Am I supposed to end my friendship with everyone else because they didn’t stand up for me and talked about my marriage, and quite honestly, spread lies about my marriage all season? Bronwyn knew she was lying about that dinner Seth had in New York City. I have text messages from Todd that very clearly say there were four businessmen at that dinner with Seth in New York, and it is abundantly clear that it was a business dinner and nothing else. She needs to own up to it. Apologize. Admit she is a liar. We already knew it with a necklace, and a multitude of other things. This is another big one. You clearly have a problem with the truth. Come clean.

And Mary?

Mary and I seem to be in a good place. I’m just a little confused by her because she always tells me she loves me, and then I got a little bit blindsided by some of the comments she made. But since the reunion, we have been good. I think a lot of the problems that I had with Mary this season were because she has so much going on in her life. Seeing stuff going on with your kid really takes a toll on you, and I’m sure that was her focus. She had all these people in her ear saying, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They are all telling her all this stuff. So, I feel like they kind of just got in her ear, and quite frankly, she was the only one who appeared to come to me out of concern rather than out trying to hurt me and take me down and defame me. Mary had a genuine concern because people were telling her these things.

Mary brought up Lisa’s hot mic moment from Season 2 when she called you a “whore” who has “fucked half of New York.” How did you move on from those remarks, which were made on camera and can never be erased?

It took a while. In Season 3, we were not getting along at all. During Season 4, we started to get along a little bit, but the women were in her ear. Season 4 was another attempt to take me down, completely decimate me and destroy my character. The women were telling Lisa false narratives about me. When you have all these people saying this stuff to you about your friend, at some point, you start believing it. But the thing is, now Lisa and I are onto it, and we’ve agreed that we are not going to let anyone say anything about either of us to the other without talking to each other first. If someone comes to me and says, “Lisa, blah, blah, blah, blah,” my answer is, “I really hope that’s not true. I’ll talk to Lisa.” It’s been an ongoing thing. There are a large number of women who either don’t like me or don’t like Lisa, and are jealous or whatever. I don’t know. I’m not in their head. But for whatever reason, they are looking to isolate us and basically either get us booted off or destroyed.

Recently on SiriusXM’s Jeff Lewis Live, you told Jeff that you “think it would be great to have a little bit of a cast shakeup. I don’t know what that means for who or what, but I do think it would be positive.” Who would you like to see go?

It’s really hard, especially in the second episode of the reunion, where we see the whole other side of the couch voicing their opinions on Britani’s side. But there were people who agreed with my side of the (Britani) story, and we didn’t see that. For me, that is very problematic. It makes me really second-guess what I’m doing here, because these are not small issues. This is not, you bought your jewelry off Alibaba — like, come on. These are big, big issues, and you don’t always get the full story. As much as I have issues with a lot of the women, I hope they all thrive and do well in whatever they’re doing. I don’t feel like I need to knock someone else down to look better. I’ll look good or bad on my very own. I make mistakes all the time and I take accountability for my mistakes. I apologize. What I don’t do is take accountability for things that other people accuse me of that aren’t true, and that happens a lot.

Would you ever consider being a “friend” of the cast so you don’t have to put your full life on display?

No. I wouldn’t be willing (to do) that, and let other people win this argument. Things need to be fair, and we will see how it goes moving forward. I’m really optimistic that things will be more fair next season.

You recently liked Monica Garcia’s post about someone from the cast being taken to the hospital to get their stomach pumped allegedly for alcohol poisoning. Why did you like the post?

I don’t do drugs. I’ll have a gummy here and there to sleep. But it’s not my thing. I am not a heavy drinker. Do I have fun here and there? Absolutely. But I’m looking at a woman at the Bronwyn event seven glasses of wine in at 11 in the morning, which was Whitney. She poured seven glasses, and eventually took the bottle back to her chair so that it’s close enough to keep pouring it. I am stone cold sober drinking tea, because it is 11 in the morning. Then Whitney calls me an alcoholic. So, you are going to defame me this way, and we have someone else taken off in an ambulance for alcohol poisoning or whatever?

Was that about Heather?

I’m not spreading new tea on it. But I liked the post, because Monica’s point was how can we talk about Meredith being an alcoholic? (Monica) has been on the cast; she knows I’m not a heavy drinker. But there are people who are heavy drinkers on this cast. I don’t know what else they do, it’s not my concern. But don’t put your finger at me when I’m one of the light drinkers on the cast.

You told Jeff Lewis you recently spoke to Jen Shah. Are you friendly with her now?

I don’t know where Jen and I are at. We had a very tumultuous relationship. I do believe in second chances. Whether I ever have any relationship with her or not, I hope she is turning things around. She’s obviously served her time. I hope that she pays her restitution. I am pretty sure she started on down that path. I think Sharif was doing that while she was in prison. They are trying to right her wrongs. I hope she contributes something positive to society. Just because you made a mistake, no matter how big it is, it doesn’t mean you can’t turn things around. And I hope she does. I don’t know what that means between her and I. Obviously, if she doesn’t turn things around, there’s nowhere to go, but I’m rooting for her to do well in her life. Whether that means I have a part of it or not, I have no idea.

Andy Cohen has said that she would never be on the show again.

Not to ever speak for Andy because I’m not in his head at all, but I would guess that if she did actually pay all her restitution back and there was a positive ending to this story, he would be a little more interested. I don’t know though. I’m not Andy.

In the third episode of the reunion it is revealed that you and production had problems this season. Why?

That’s what I mean by the TikTok. (The cast) is repeatedly told that we don’t follow social media stories: It’s ruining the show. But when it comes to me, we are following it. Why are we following a story of false accusations of substance abuse, but not following the truth? That was my real issue. I told my producers that I will take a drug test every single day. You are going to do damage to me, and there’s no way to prove it wrong. But they aired it.

Both Whitney and Bronwyn were very open during the season about how they might want marriages that are less typical than the usual monogamous ones that we see. You and Seth have been clear that you lived separate lives for a while. Do you still not have a typical marriage?

We never had an open marriage. We separated, and we weren’t together. But then we got back together. I know a lot of people who live in an open marriage and are very, very happy. It’s just not for me. I’m not knocking it. But it would not work for me. That would make me crazy.

Do you think that Britani is antisemitic?

I have no idea. All I can say is she supported one, and she did not take that (post) down immediately. It was up for a while. I have messages and voice memos that somebody sent to her that she should probably take it down, but she had to talk to Bravo to see what the right thing to do is. It wasn’t about the fact that she wrote the Google review, because even though it was on the news, obviously it’s possible she didn’t see it. The problem was how she handled it once it was brought to her attention, and she answered with, “Maybe I’ll take it down, I have to talk to Bravo.” That’s where I ran into a problem, and I was like, “Whoa.” So, do I think she’s an antisemite? I have no idea. I know she supported an antisemite.

And what’s your response to Heather saying you lied about her mocking Bronwyn for kissing a girl?

I didn’t lie. That’s what Bronwyn told me. I wasn’t there.

How was meeting Charli xcx at Sundance?

Oh my gosh, she’s amazing! She was so cool. I was just mad I didn’t have my Meredith Marks Caviar to give her, because I play her song during my DJ set.

How’s the DJing going?

So fun. It’s been, like, the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.

This interview has been edited and condensed.