The 15 Worst Boyfriends And Husbands In The Real Housewives Universe

The following article includes allegations of domestic abuse.

We love most of the women who have appeared on the "Real Housewives" franchise over the years, and we could list off a number of their collective strengths. But picking good men? That is not typically one of them. Sure, there are some solid "Real Housewives" men — Russell Abraira, Rob Minkhoff, or the late Bobby Zarin, for example. But the good ones are overshadowed by arrogant, annoying, lazy, or flat-out toxic ones. We have seen emotional abuse, violent tempers, cheating, and even physical abuse from far too many "Real Housewives" husbands and boyfriends.

Some "Real Housewives" cast members have such bad pickers that it is difficult to narrow down the all-time worst househusband or boyfriends, but the men on this list are at the bottom of the barrel. We did not include any men who, like Noella Bergener's husband "Sweet James," were discussed but never appeared on the show, nor anyone who is deceased, like Taylor Armstrong's ex, Russell. And since the focus was specifically on how the men treated their wives, a few bad dudes (like Tom Girardi, who allegedly stole money from orphans and widows) are not on the list. Even then, some doozies like Josh Taekman, Bill Aydin, Tom D'Agostino, and Kelsey Grammer, had to be left off to accommodate the absolute worst men on the show. Here are the 15 worst boyfriends and husbands in the "Real Housewives" universe.

Joe Giudice had to be first on this list, if only because no other househusband has ever sent his wife to prison. And sure, Joe's wife Teresa Giudice signed the paperwork that officially got her hauled away to the Big House, but her claim that she did not realize what she was signing is believable. This is a woman who does not even know many basic words, after all (and Andy Cohen has tested her vocabulary on "Watch What Happens Live" numerous times). Teresa was famously sentenced to 11 months in prison for her entanglement in Joe's bankruptcy fraud, and she never saw it coming because she let her husband deal with all of their finances. "It was the most devastating thing in my entire life," Teresa said at 2022 BravoCon (via People).

As if that were not enough, there are other reasons Joe landed on this list. For years, there were rumors he cheated with multiple women. The strongest claim came from Teresa's "Real Housewives of New Jersey" co-star Jacqueline Laurita, who said on the Season 4 reunion that it was an open secret that Joe cheated. It also does not help that the show aired damning footage of a phone call between Joe and a mysterious person in which he called his wife the B-word and the C-word. Teresa has since divorced Juicy Joe — although her new hubby is no prize either.

"Real Housewife of Potomac" star Ashley Darby has been on the show since the beginning, and many have grown to love her over the last seven seasons. She separated from her husband Michael in 2022, but it is unclear (even to her castmates) if the divorce was ever finalized. Michael is very much still in Ashley's life, not only because they share two young sons, but also because they bought a home together — post-split. It made no sense to anyone on "RHOP," and viewers don't get it either. Then again, many don't understand the appeal of Michael in the first place. For starters, he has never seemed to care for his wife all that much. We have seen him gush over fellow househusband Juan Dixon, but he doesn't tend to show that level of adoration for Ashley.

When the Darbys owned a restaurant, named Oz, their conversations about the business made it abundantly clear that Michael thought of his wife as a subordinate and not as an equal partner. And then there's the icky stuff. In 2019, a Bravo cameraman accused Michael of sexual assault — although the legal charges were later dismissed due to "insufficient evidence" (per People). To boot, scandalous footage of Michael in bed with a woman was leaked in 2020.

As viewers learned more about Juan Dixon and his dynamic with his wife Robyn, they may have realized that maybe he was not the catch many thought he was. The "Real Housewives of Potomac" couple have lived together since the show began in 2016, but they were divorced before Season 1 even came to be. ""We got divorced because we weren't in a good place in our relationship and there was kind of some infidelity and we weren't really in tune and connected," Robyn told OK! Magazine. "Something had to change, and unfortunately it was drastic." 

The couple slowly rekindled their flame and eventually remarried, but infidelity has once again become a topic of conversation. After Season 7 of "Real Housewives of Potomac" ended, it came out that Juan had been chatting inappropriately with another woman. On her podcast, Robyn claimed that there was no infidelity, but a lot of people doubt that story considering Juan's name is on the woman's hotel receipt. Robyn was also critiqued for keeping this information off the show and then charging people money to hear the podcast episode about it. Given that Juan was fired from his coaching job at Coppin State for ignoring sexual misconduct, perhaps he's just not the best guy in general.

"Real Housewives of Orange County" star Vicki Gunvalson has said, on far too many occasions, that she never should have ended things with her second husband Donn. And honestly, we don't blame her considering the clunkers she has dated in the years since. The man who helped contribute to the demise of Gunvalson's 20-year marriage is widely regarded as one of the most despicable people ever to grace reality television, having faked cancer and even going so far as to forge medical records. "I divorced my husband for Brooks [Ayers] and it's the biggest regret I ever had," Vicki told an audience during a 2022 BravoCon panel (via People). "I will never, ever cheat again. It destroyed my family." 

Gunvalson dated Ayers for four years, and she was at one point accused of knowing he fabricated his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosis — which she has consistently denied. Horrible fake cancer performance aside, there are so many other reasons Ayers was the worst of the worst. For instance, Gunvalson's adult daughter, Briana Culbertson, accused Ayers of hitting on her at a party when she was pregnant. He has denied the story, but your credibility is kind of shot once you fake cancer on national television. Another strike against Ayers is his mooching. Gunvalson paid for Ayers to live a certain type of lifestyle and even loaned him money. In 2019, she was forced to sue him for fraud after she said that he failed to pay back nearly $185,000.

In March 2023, shortly after filming wrapped on Season 15 of "Real Housewives of Atlanta," cast member Drew Sidora and her husband Ralph Pittman raced each other to the courthouse to file divorce papers. Luckily, the producers decided to pick filming back up because of it. The split was not really a big shocker for fans, because Pittman was a horrible husband. And that is based only on what viewers have seen, so we cannot imagine what has gone on behind closed doors. In Pittman's first season on the show, he disappeared to Tampa for three days without telling his wife where he was going and without checking in. Sidora singing a heartbreak song directly to Pittman on the Season 15 reunion was up there with the most awkward Bravo moments of all time, but this is a guy who deserves to squirm.  

Whatever he did in Tampa, Sidora should have been thankful her hubby was out of the house. He speaks to her dismissively, consistently gaslights her, and has no regard for her feelings. In Season 15 alone, Pittman walked into a party without acknowledging her, left her to do marriage counseling alone after being called out, and dismissed her tears over him not defending her. Sidora is clearly imperfect, but the constant gaslighting would get to anyone. And then there is "cousin" Courtney, who may or may not be Pittman's side chick and who he used as a mouthpiece to throw punches at his soon-to-be ex-wife.

Former baseball player Jim Edmonds is on marriage number four, but it is his third one, to "Real Housewives of Orange County" alum Meghan King, that reality TV fans care about. King was married to Edmonds when she became a cast member on "RHOC" and though she left with her marriage intact, the couple divorced soon after. No one was surprised by the breakup because it was obvious throughout their three seasons (from 2015 to 2017) that Edmonds did not like his wife in the slightest. 

In a YouTube series where she rewatched episodes, King admitted that a scene of her husband completely ignoring her was hard to stomach. "So rude. So embarrassing," she said in the video (via Page Six). We have to agree with her because few Househusbands have shown such little interest in their wives — Edmonds was barely even present throughout the couple's IVF journey.

Things have gotten incredibly messy and there have been many public insults slung since the divorce, but it is what Edmonds did during the marriage that really scored him a spot on this list. Aside from disrespecting his wife on a continual basis, he has also been accused of cheating with their nanny. It is unclear if that happened, but it was confirmed that he was caught sending nude selfies to a woman while King was about to give birth to their twins. "It was just a weak moment," he told TMZ Sports. A weak moment, or a weak man? That's debatable.

The part of the marriage where "Real Housewives of New York" star Bethenny Frankel was actually together with Jason Hoppy is minuscule in comparison to the portion after they separated. This was truly the divorce from hell — eight years of toxic battle, which means the divorce proceedings lasted four times as long as the pre-split marriage. The couple's relationship was chronicled on the spin-off "Bethenny Ever After," which lasted for three seasons and included their 2010 wedding and the birth of their daughter Brynn. But, once he and Frankel called it quits in December 2012, he showed his true colors. 

First of all, Hoppy refused to move out of the apartment and Frankel has said she had to padlock her bedroom door to feel safe. And, yes, that sounds extreme, but it hits differently when you consider that years later, in 2017, Hoppy was given a six-month stay-away order after being arrested for stalking and harassing Frankel. He also allegedly badmouthed the "RHONY" star to their daughter, emotionally abused her with cruel comments about her age and looks, and locked her dog in a storage cabinet. "He would take bad press about me and put it on the counter," Frankel testified in court (per In Touch Weekly). The pair's divorce was finalized in 2021, so hopefully, Hoppy will likely never appear on TV again.

Not only is Jim Marchese a crappy husband, but he just might be one of the worst humans ever to appear on the "Real Housewives" franchise. At the very least, he is one of the most hated men to have been featured. If you do not believe it, just head to Reddit, where there is no shortage of threads about his behavior and personality. Never have we been more thankful that a "Housewife" lasted only one season, because Amber Marchese was no prize either. And when you add in Jim, it was almost too much to bear, even for "Real Housewives of New Jersey," which is one of the franchise's most aggressive series.

Aside from being rude to virtually every person he came into contact with on Season 6 of "RHONJ," he even made up a rumor about another Househusband sleeping with his mother-in-law. Plus, Jim does not treat Amber respectfully. He puts her down so much that he was even called out for it when the couple appeared on "Marriage Bootcamp." Most disgustingly, he blamed her for getting breast cancer. He also stopped paying his son's college tuition after he came out of the closet. In 2016, Jim was arrested on charges of domestic violence after he was observed choking Amber on a flight. Both of them denied it happened, but it is hard not to believe Virgin Airlines staff, who also claimed Jim threatened Amber's life. 

Former football player Bob Whitfield is up there with the worst on the show, as the ex-husband of "Real Housewives of Atlanta" staple Shereé Whitfield has virtually no redeeming qualities. It was flabbergasting watching Shereé learn about Bob's secret daughter, who he had kept hidden for decades, when he brought her to an event featured on a 2023 episode of the show. Then again, it tracks for Bob, who seems to be missing a sensitivity gene.

Our big beef with Bob stems from the fact that he was physically and verbally abusive during his marriage to Shereé. Since the pair were divorced prior to the start of "Real Housewives of Atlanta," the truth only came to light after Bob made unsettling comments toward his ex-wife on Season 9 of the show. "I don't remember choking her, but if I did, I'm sorry because maybe I didn't choke hard enough," he "joked" during one episode [0:54], leaving Shereé in tears. On top of being abusive, Bob also allegedly cheated with another "RHOA" cast member (a friend of Tammy McCall Browning). Plus, in retaliation for Shereé revealing he was a somewhat absent father, he poked fun at his ex's plastic surgery on the radio.

Shannon Storms Beador's negativity, selfishness, and lack of self-reflection have been issues for her fellow cast members, and they have been issues for many viewers as well. Considering that, it is entirely probable that these things have also impacted her relationships, including her marriage. Still, David Beador was a bad husband and possibly part of the reason Storms Beador is the difficult person she is today. We never saw him treat her well, except for perhaps that time he fished a lost piece of a plastic enema out of her butt. In general, though, Beador showed about as much emotion as the robot from "The Terminator" and never seemed to have anything behind the eyes besides pure hatred. 

Storms Beador denied her ex-husband was abusive when co-star and close friend Vicki Gunvalson claimed to have text messages and photos proving it (during the Season 11 reunion). However, given that Beador was reportedly arrested for assault and battery in 2003, it seems likely she was being untruthful. Though she may not want to open up about any physical abuse, Storms Beador was extremely transparent about other issues in her marriage, including Beador's long-term affair. The couple tried to make things work after the affair came out, but the "RHOC" star ultimately realized she was the only one who was invested. "You need two people to make a marriage work, and that just wasn't happening in our relationship," Storms Beador said upon their 2017 separation (via E! News).

Viewers love "Real Housewives of Atlanta Star" Cynthia Bailey's ex-partner Leon Robinson. They've maintained a friendship and a strong co-parenting relationship (they have an adult daughter Noelle) that has been highlighted in the series. While Bailey's second husband Mike Hill was fine — the couple divorced in 2022 after two years of marriage — her first husband Peter Thomas was controversial from the start. Even Bailey's own family members took issue with the businessman. After trying (and failing) to talk Bailey out of marrying Thomas, her sister and mother memorably hid the couple's wedding license in hopes of stopping them from walking down the aisle. They eventually handed it over and Bailey wed Thomas, who showed up to his own wedding inebriated.

Thomas and Bailey were married from 2010 to 2017, and viewers had a front-row seat to the messiness that ensued. In addition to multiple cheating rumors, Thomas was not a caring husband. For instance, he once told Bailey she was fat after she expressed distress at being called pregnant by blogs after fibroid complications left her looking bloated. He was also a huge mooch who borrowed money from Bailey to open a restaurant and later purchased a warehouse without even telling her first. And for some reason, Bailey actually agreed to let Thomas take 15% of her "RHOA" earnings, which Thomas boasted about in a 2023 interview.

Lenny Hochstein is regarded as such a bad husband that he even won Vulture's bracket of the all-time worst Househusbands across any franchise. The plastic surgeon was first featured on "Real Housewives of Miami" in 2012, when his wife Lisa joined the show as a Season 2 cast member. Lenny was condescending and disrespectful toward Lisa, but there were no major hints of what was to come. Because "RHOM" was canceled after the next season, the couple faded from the public eye for almost a decade, until the show was revived by Peacock in 2022. By the time of the show's return, the Hochsteins — who now have two children — had been married nearly a decade and a half.

Lisa was a stay-at-home wife and mother and Lenny expected her to do everything related to domesticity, as if they were living in the 1940s. In fact, in a scene from Season 5, when the nanny called in sick, he chose tennis over watching his own children. Instead, he forced Lisa to try to find a babysitter while she was on a cast vacation. The biggest reason he is the worst, though, is his affair, which he at first denied in the press but was caught speaking about on a hot mic. Since then, he has blamed Lisa for cheating, repeatedly bashed her in the media, and allegedly cut her off financially. In May 2023, Lenny accused Lisa of verbally and physically assaulting him, but no arrests were made.

Like so many men on this list, Matt Kirschenheiter is a cheater who treated his wife poorly. He also allegedly got violent in a much-publicized domestic dispute that led to his arrest. But it should also be acknowledged that he appears to have done the work to become a better man. He and his ex-wife, "Real Housewives of Orange County" star Gina Kirschenheiter, now hang out together with their kids and partners. This does not excuse his past behavior, but it at least shows growth. "I'm legitimately so thankful that we're all on the same page because it's so good for the kids to have the same structure and discipline in both houses," Gina told Matt's girlfriend on a Season 17 episode (via BravoTV). "I love having a big, blended family."

Gina and Matt were married well before she joined the show in Season 13, but Matt living an hour away in Los Angeles felt like a big red flag for a lot of viewers. Cut to 2018, when the pair separated after eight years of marriage. Gina later disclosed that Matt had an affair and that it continued while the couple was in therapy trying to deal with the infidelity. Matt was then arrested in June 2019, after reportedly getting physically violent and threatening to kill Gina in a ferocious rage. He pled guilty and Gina made a victim's impact statement, but they have since moved past the incident for the sake of their three kids.

Kordell Stewart may have been a star football player in the NFL, but no one can say he was a star husband. Stewart was married to Porsha Williams when she made her "Real Housewives of Atlanta" debut, way back in Season 5, and he treated her terribly. He essentially wanted a Stepford Wife and controlled what Williams wore, how she acted, and where she went. She was a totally different person to the Williams who exists today. Viewers then saw a muted version of her that lacked confidence and was missing her hilarious vivaciousness. Williams and Stewart split in 2013, and even she has said she was not herself in those old episodes. "I had never seen or knew how I would come off to the public and so I was very critical of myself," she explained at 2019 BravoCon (via BravoTV). "And it wasn't until over the years, I started just letting the cameras see who I really was."

A whole new Williams emerged after she broke free from the shackles of her marriage, but the road there was rocky. Ever the coward, Stewart did not tell Williams he was divorcing her directly, with her instead discovering the news online. As Williams attempted to salvage things, Stewart acted like a true creep. He locked her out of their house, sent her stuff off for storage, and even tore up her wedding dress. His leaving was a blessing in disguise for Williams.

We are certainly not trying to pick on Porsha Williams, who is arguably one of the funniest women that the "Real Housewives" has ever had on a series, but the woman just has a bad picker. It is too soon to make a judgment on her current husband, Simon Guobadia, but Kordell Stewart is not Williams' only awful ex. Her former fiancé Dennis McKinley was also a horrible partner. McKinley and Williams began dating in 2018, announced they were pregnant a couple of months later, and were done by 2020. Viewers were able to see it all unfold thanks to the "Real Housewives of Atlanta," their spin-off series "Porsha's Family Matters," and the ample details released to gossip bloggers.

Though the pair have an amicable relationship and co-parent well, McKinley completely disrespected Williams by cheating on her while they were together. To make matters worse, he blamed his cheating on her postpartum depression. "Sex during pregnancy, it's nothing what a man wants to do...and after PJ got here, postpartum was very real. We cried together like every night. That's not a good enough why, but that's the why," he said during a therapy session (via People). That alone is enough for him to be amongst the worst, even if overlooking his alleged assault of his pregnant ex, and those controversial porn rumors.

If you or anyone you know may be the victim of domestic abuse, or needs help with mental health, contact the relevant resources below:

• Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.
• Contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.