The Real Housewives of Orange County’s Tamra Judge is just like Us — shocked that Vicki Gunvalson will be returning for season 20 of the hit Bravo show.
“No, I did not know it was gonna go down,” Tamra, 58, exclusively told Us Weekly while attending BravoCon 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday, November 15. “I’ve been, you know, spending a little time with Vicki lately and talking with her. And I’m like, ‘Have you got any news?’ You know, normally we don’t get news about next season till about December or January. So she’s like, ‘No, I haven’t heard anything.’”
She continued, “So yeah, she was totally surprised. Totally surprised.”
Vicki’s triumphant return to reality TV was announced on Saturday, when Andy Cohen ceremoniously gifted her with an orange on the BravoCon stage during the The Bravos award show, signifying her return to the show she helped launch 20 years ago.
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“When I went out there, Andy wanted to give Kandi Burruss the Wifetime Achievement Award, and he gave me a weeks’ notice,” Vicki exclusively told Us on Sunday of what led to the memorable on-stage moment. “I prepared a speech, and I went up on stage, and it wasn’t on the prompter.”
Vicki, 63, continued, “When he asked me about season 20, I was really somber going out there because I thought, ‘This is my last time on stage. This is my last time with BravoCon. They’re putting me out to pasture. I’m going to kick and scream the whole way out, but I’m going to do it.’ And then, when he asked me, it took a while for me to understand that this is my next life now for at least a year.”
On Saturday, Tamra told Us how she felt in that moment, watching her friend be formally invited back to the show.
“I was so happy,” she told Us. “So, Eddie [Judge] was sitting with Mike [Smith], who we absolutely adore, [Vicki’s] boyfriend of, like, four years.”
Tamra then asked her husband how Mike reacted to the moment in the crowd.
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“He’s like, his jaw dropped,” she dished to us of Michael’s reaction to his girlfriend having her BravoCon moment. “And he’s like, ‘Oh my god, this is happening.’ Because he’s much like Eddie, where he’s like, ‘OK, you do your stuff. I’m gonna go sit over in the corner.’ So now, Eddie will have somebody to hang out with.”
Vicki, who left the show in 2020, also shared with Us how her boyfriend has been supporting her as she prepares to once again live life in front of the reality TV cameras — a decision she made clear was ultimately hers and hers alone.
“I said to him last night, ‘Are you OK with this?” Vicki told Us. “It’s an equal relationship. It’s not anyone powering over the other one. He doesn’t control me. I don’t control him. If he said to me, ‘I really wish you didn’t do it,’ I [would be like], ‘Goodbye.’ I’m not listening to him. This is my life, and I choose the life I want to live.”
