RHOC's Dr. Jen Armstrong Gets Real About Her Messy Split With Husband Ryne Holliday

Another season, another "Housewives" cast turnover. After joining the cast of "Real Housewives of Orange County" in 2021, Dr. Jen Armstrong was let go after just one season. "I loved opening up about being a working mom on Real Housewives of Orange County. I am so grateful to have had the privilege to talk about my father, my kids, and a real modern relationship on national television," she wrote in a July 2022 Instagram post. "My family and my work are the most important aspects of my life, so I am stepping away from RHOC and focusing on them."

It turns out that Armstrong wasn't "stepping away" of her own accord. Rather, she was pushed out by producers. "Relief was my first feeling. And then of course, you're sad, right?" she said on a July episode of "Behind the Velvet Rope." "Because it's exciting, you do new things and you're like nobody wants to be dumped, right. You want to do the dumping," she added.

Stomaching a job loss hasn't been easy, but it's definitely not the first thing on Armstrong's mind these days. The plastic surgeon and former reality star has been focused on her messy marriage and potential separation from her partner of 12 years.

Jen Armstrong's failing marriage was at the center of her storyline during her one year on Bravo. Kelly Dodd, another former housewife, insinuated that the separation, which was publicly announced after Armstrong's season wrapped, was less about the marriage and more about trying to secure an interesting enough story for producers to extend her contract, per Page Six. According to Armstrong, the reality of her situation with her estranged husband Ryne Holliday is far more complicated.

"You know, we've been together 12 years. I think that that's a difficult thing just to cut ties," Armstrong explained during her July "Behind the Velvet Rope" interview. "And especially when you have three children and a puppy, but what do they say? It takes seven times to leave someone," she continued. So, are they actually splitting up? Armstrong explained that they separated, then filed for divorce, then put the divorce on hold to attend marriage counseling at Holliday's insistence. "I think that as of yesterday, we're now separated again," she said. "So I don't know. I don't know how much you're supposed to try. I just kind of want to move on. Today. In this hour right now I would like to move on."

Armstrong is far from the first Housewive to have her marriage problems play out on screen. In fact, she will be replaced by long-time "RHOC" star Tamra Judge, who got divorced and remarried during her tenure on the show, per Us Weekly.