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Former members of Mary Cosby’s Faith Temple Pentecostal Church are speaking out against the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star.
In a PEOPLE exclusive preview of TLC’s upcoming documentary, The Cult of the Real Housewife, ex-congregant Ernest Enoch addresses the audio that was leaked in 2020 of Mary chastising her church members about only getting 14 cards for her birthday and the amount of money they gave her.
“I was there when Mary complained about the 14 birthday cards,” Ernest says in the clip. “I was always there. I’m the organist. I gave this chick a card with $1,000 in it. Ask me if she said thank you.”
When the audio about the birthday cards was first leaked, Mary, 53, addressed it during the RHOSLC reunion, saying it was taken out of context. She also stated that it was unfair to assume that she was using her congregation’s money for her own purchases.
“Andy, my church couldn’t possibly take care of me,” she told host Andy Cohen. “I’m a God-fearing woman and would never do that.”
Ernest’s sister Rosalind Enoch further claims in The Cult of the Real Housewife clip that Mary and her husband Robert Cosby Sr., the widower of Mary’s late grandma Rosemary ‘Mama’ Cosby, “created this thing called heave offerings” at Faith Temple.
“They were going to have them every six months,” she said. “It started to increase over time. We could’ve just had a heave offering meeting and then in another week or two we’re having another meeting where we’re being told there’s an emergency and they need $100,000 and they need it by Thursday. The worst announcement you could hear when you walked into that church is, ’Tell everybody don’t leave. We need to have an emergency saints meeting.’ You knew it was going to be about money.”
TLC
Rosalind claimed that Robert Sr. would “instruct ushers to stand at the doors” during these meetings at the church.
“You’re just being barricaded in here,” she said. “During this meeting, everyone put their name and their amount on the list. If you didn’t have a certain amount, Robert would say, ‘That’s all you have?’ I mean, there’s nothing spiritual about that, right?”
Rosalind also claimed that they’d use credit cards to collect money. She said she even once texted her debit card number to the member who collected money.
“There were times that I would give $5,000,” she said. “It was a lot. This money is getting bigger and bigger. There were people cashing out 401(k)s, losing homes. It got to be a financial embarrassment for some.”
Still, Rosalind said the members would not know where “all this money” was going or what it was “being used for.”
The Cult of the Real Housewife is a three-part docuseries that traces the dramatic rise of Faith Temple from its founding by Mary’s grandmother to her passing. It also covers the controversial transfer of leadership and Mary’s marriage to Robert Sr.
While Mary has not addressed specific claims in the documentary, she called the project “sad and a shame” when asked about it at BravoCon 2025 in November.
“It’s horrible, that’s what I think,” she said. “And it’s not true.”
The Cult of the Real Housewife premieres Thursday, Jan. 1 at 8 p.m. ET on TLC. All episodes will be available to stream the next day on HBO Max and discovery+.
