Heather Gay has nothing but love for the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives cast.
While the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City fan favorite says she isn’t close with the women from the reality series, she feels an affinity for them.
“We have mostly parasocial relationships online, but we see each other at events and stuff,” Gay, 51, tells PEOPLE. “I love them. I champion them.”
Gay — who has starred on RHOSLC since it premiered in 2020 — sees herself in the women navigating marriage, motherhood and fame in Utah. Once a devout Mormon, the Beauty Lab + Laser founder left the LDS when she got divorced from the father of her three children and joined the hit Bravo show. She’s since become a vocal critic of the Mormon church, discussing her experience leaving it in her book Bad Mormon and in her new docuseries Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay (season 1 now streaming on Peacock).
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“I think they are Salt Lake City housewives 20 years ago. Their Mormonism will change the more they are introduced to things outside of our bubble and the more that they have independent thought and independent income,” Gay says. “That’s what was true for me, and I was as devoted as they come. So I’m interested to watch their journeys.”
Fans of both RHOSLC and Secret Lives of Mormon Wives have rallied on social media for Gay to host the MomTok stars’ reunions. And while she would be interested, Gay says, “the network would have to let me.” (Her shows air on Bravo and Peacock, while Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is a Hulu original; podcaster Nick Viall hosted the season 2 reunion, while Vanderpump Rules alum Stassi Schroeder will host the season 3 reunion.)
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Still, she supports the younger cast on Secret Lives. She’d even like to pop by star Jessi Ngatikaura’s salon, JZ Styles — ”and they all want to come to Beauty Lab,” Gay says of her medspa.
“Truly, we’re all each other’s got, and so we really need to champion each other,” Gay says of the RHOSLC and Secret Lives casts. “There’s not a lot of women business owners and thriving, outspoken, beautiful, strong women, and I think they represent all of that. I’m proud they’re calling themselves Mormon wives. I identify with it.”
Gay’s new docuseries, Surviving Mormonism, premiered on Nov. 11. On the show, she interviews former Mormons about their experiences in the church, including claims of abuse and controversial practices such as conversion therapy.
“I don’t think this is a show about tearing down the church. I think this is a show about giving space to survivors that experience the shadow side of something that we all find fascinating, but no one ever talks about. I feel more afraid of people not speaking out — of not acknowledging these survivors, of not honoring them and their stories — more than I’m afraid of the church,” the RHOSLC star previously told PEOPLE. “It’s not about the church. It’s about what people that survived the church have to say now.”
