The ‘Real Housewives of Orange County’ star joins ET for Housewives Happy Hour to dish about how she feels after her first season on reality TV.
Peggy Sulahian admits she hasn’t loved every minute of her Real Housewives experience.
“[It was] very challenging,” she confesses. “One percent of the time I enjoyed it. The other 99, I was trying to figure it out. But, it was a good experience, because I met the ladies and they’re nice women -- when they’re not in front of the cameras.”
ET caught up with Bravo’s 100th Housewife at The Quiet Woman restaurant and bar in Corona Del Mar, California, to get her thoughts on her first season on The Real Housewives of Orange County.
The only two women Peggy says she can count as “true friends” after her first season on the show are Lydia McLaughlin, who introduced her to the group, and Vicki Gunvalson. She alleges her other co-stars are nasty just for the sake of TV, which has led to what she calls the biggest misconception about her -- that she’s hard to understand.
“That’s B.S., because I know four languages,” Peggy says. “I know how to read and write Armenian, all my friends went to an Armenian school, all my friends are Armenian, even after high school they are all Armenian. Even in college, when I turned up at UCLA, there’s Americans around me, there’s different cultures, but it was very difficult for me to adapt to.”
“For them to say, ‘We don’t understand you,’ because I’m bilingual -- Armenian is my primary language. So, if you want me to say anything in Armenian, I can tell you a lot of idioms, but I won’t insult you because you don’t know it. Just because I’m raised here, I’m still Armenian.”
Peggy is referencing the cast’s confusion over her lack of knowledge about American sayings and phrases, like “monkey in the middle” and “peanut gallery.” Her co-stars repeated questioning of her seemingly comes to a head on the all-cast trip to Iceland, wrapping up on Monday’s episode.
“I set people in place, because I’m not one to shut up,” Peggy teases of the trip. “Go ahead, think you’re going to walk away from me. Go ahead ... once you keep touching me, you know, I’ve given you that leeway, it’s not going to happen. And I’ll put you in a position that you don’t even know how to get out of.”
She says it took her that long to get comfortable with the women and break out of her shell. Peggy is adamant that she was “bullied” by almost all the women this season on the show, and that she was pushed to her “limit” while in Iceland.
“Everybody does it differently, I gotta say,” she claims. “Everybody does it according to their personalities. Kelly [Dodd] was [the biggest].”
Still, Peggy says she’s open to returning for a second go-around… maybe.
“Depends who’s in it,” she says with a laugh. “If they like me, and they want class and not trash, they’ll have me back.”
The Real Housewives of Orange County airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo. Check out the video below to get Peggy’s co-star, Tamra Judge’s, thoughts on a possible cast shakeup for season 13.