The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Heather Gay shared rare insight into her dynamic with ex-husband Bill before their divorce.
“About three days into my marriage, I realized that we were fiercely, deeply incompatible,” Heather, 51, revealed in the first episode of her new docuseries, Surviving Mormonism, which premiered on Bravo Tuesday, November 11. “I thought he was marrying me for all the reasons he wasn’t, and I was marrying him for all the reasons he did not want to be a husband.”
In the new series, Heather set out to dive deeper into the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, exploring the scandals and secrets kept behind closed doors. She opened up about how her own relationship with religion shifted over the years.
“It wasn’t like I hit some point in my life where Mormonism started to be a burden,” she told the cameras. “From the moment I was aware of it, it supplanted my identity. I’m a cradle Mormon, I was born into the faith. And I loved being Mormon growing up.”
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Both of Heather’s parents were from Mormon families. “All of our family rituals and family traditions and family togetherness was centered around church activities and our church beliefs,” she said. “I had these siblings who were my built-in best friends and we were all in on it together. And I didn’t feel like it was fake.”
According to Heather, one of the most important principles of the Mormon faith is “that the greatest happiness on earth can be found within the family and the family is the vehicle by which to grow closer to God and attain eternal life.”
“That belief informed the type of family I wanted to create for myself,” the reality star continued. “The second I met someone that was willing, I knew that I had the capacity to make any marriage work because I loved God, I loved being Mormon, I was good at being Mormon. But I was very, very wrong.”
Heather and Bill — who also comes from a long line of loyal Mormons — got married in 2000 and separated after 11 years. The former couple’s divorce was finalized in 2014.
“Divorce wasn’t in my vocabulary,” Heather said in Tuesday’s episode. “I didn’t know anyone that was divorced. But he did. My marriage was ending and my Mormon dream was shattered too. And my entire life imploded.”
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RHOSLC fans have seen Heather navigate her life post-divorce with her and Bill’s three daughters since the show debuted in 2020. During season 6, Heather got candid about coparenting with her ex-husband.
“My husband never had custody of the children,” she said on RHOSLC in September. “He never had them overnight. I had them 100 percent of the time. And his involvement was, you know, fun dad visits once a week.”
Heather admitted that raising her kids alone was a “really hard” era in her life. “And mostly hard because I couldn’t show them it was hard,” she told her fellow Housewives. “I acted like it was perfect and normal, and I was so happy, and I was so fine. And I loved everything I was doing. But I was gritting my teeth the whole time. I’m exhausted, honestly. I’m just looking forward to a new chapter.”
All three episodes of Surviving Mormonism With Heather Gay will be available to stream on Peacock Wednesday, November 12.
