How To Win Your Reality TV Breakup

When Love Is Blind’s Chelsea Griffin and Kwame Appiah announced their divorce in a joint Instagram post last month, the comments were flooded by one overwhelming sentiment: “I’m not surprised.”

That might seem cruel (welcome to the internet). But this is a couple whose relationship started on TV and now has publicly ended on their Instagram pages, which have over a million followers in total. Love Is Blind fans have spent three years paying close attention to the former couple and picking up on clues — some dating as far back as their time in the pods in Season 4 of the Netflix dating series — that their marriage was headed toward Splitsville.

So what do they do now? If you’ve watched Ariana Madix rise to a new level of fame post-Scandoval or witnessed The Bachelor’s Rachael Kirkconnell come out as a bigger social media star after her unconscious uncoupling with Matt James, it’s clear that reality TV breakups are a fascinating new bellwether of a cast member’s potential star power. If they play it right — even better, if they start by getting played — then recent history points to a post-heartbreak correlation to getting hotter and richer.

Play the long game

If anyone can school a reality star on the art of a divorce storyline, it’s probably a Real Housewife. Bravo fans have made a sport out of clocking when a cast member is priming viewers for an onscreen split.

“It’s called lily padding, and it’s basically when a Housewife goes on the show to leave their husband,” says Ronnie Karam, who cohosts the Bravo recap podcast Watch What Crappens with Ben Mandelker. “They basically bring their husband on camera, and they show what an asshole they are. And then the audience is like, ‘Leave him! Leave him!’ Then by the time they get their Season 2 and they get a better paycheck, they’ve made themselves financially secure enough to leave.”

Fans have suspected Bronwyn Newport of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is the latest cast member to do just that. After spending the past two seasons defending husband Todd’s condescending behavior, she dropped her separation announcement in December.

Spotting red flags on-screen gets viewers hooked on your story. “With [Summer House’s] West and Ciara, we spent like two to three weeks, if not a little bit longer, debating, are they breaking up? And [Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’] Mauricio and Kyle, like, ‘Oh, is this happening?’” Mandelker says. “The investigation creates its own hype — suddenly everyone's talking about it.”

Keep an eye on social media buzz

Couples who use reality TV to secure their happily-ever-after — like those on Love Is Blind, The Bachelor, or Love Island — typically use their new sizable social media followings to document the next stage of their relationship. That gives followers a lot of information to work with, from how lovey-dovey they look in photos to how passionate their captions are about each other.

It also means fans can sniff out when something’s amiss. A partner wasn’t pictured on a trip abroad? A husband didn’t like his wife’s latest post? Or the most damning clue of all: “Not following them is a huge one, especially if you were once following them,” says Eulaine Ndhlovu, the host of The Reality Recap With Queen E podcast. “If you unfollow, the sleuths are going to go mad, like they’re going to know something is wrong, and oftentimes they’re on the money.”

“Maybe 80% of the bigger things that come out end up being real.”

And while reality stars can use this attention to breadcrumb breakups, at a certain point, they may also lose control of the narrative. When a critical mass of superfans are talking about a potential breakup, it’s only a matter of time before tabloids and gossip accounts like Deuxmoi start adding to the rumor mill.

“I would say, a lot of the time, maybe 80% of the bigger things that come out when speculated on end up being real,” says Sarah, aka porcelain_queen, a moderator of Reddit’s Vanderpump Rules and Bachelor communities. “And I hate to say that, because there are so many times, for example, with Scandoval, when those rumors started coming out — I think it was that Raquel and Tom were seen making out — that I was like, ‘There’s just no way he would do that with how public they are and how many eyes are always on them.’ And then it ends up being true. And you’re just like, ‘What?’”

Start civil, then rally your besties

Chelsea and Kwame’s joint announcement of their divorce on Instagram is among the most popular ways to reveal a split. And it’s also one of the safest methods, with language that is often mutually respectful and, let’s be honest, vague. Of course, fans are going to dissect it — along with any accompanying photos — to fill in the blanks about what went wrong (or validate their own long-standing suspicions).

While this approach isn’t drama-proof (more can, of course, reveal itself later), messier breakups have come to light through divorce filings (as reported by TMZ), Instagram stories that hint at cheating, or your friends simply spilling the tea, like what reportedly happened between Love Island USA’s JaNa Craig and Kenny Rodriguez. “That one was insane,” Ndhlovu says, referring to how Craig’s friends and castmates alleged that Rodriguez made racist comments and used the relationship for clout. “All of her castmates came out and said something. Like, everybody was now making an Instagram statement. I had never seen that before.”

Book your tell-all (but keep some boundaries)

For Real Housewives or the stars of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, the dissolution of a marriage usually plays out over the course of a season. But for the couples who meet (and maybe win) on reality TV dating shows, they usually end up sharing more details on a podcast, a platform tailor-made for telling their side of the story — and, if all goes according to plan, amassing more fans’ support.

After Bachelor star Matt James abruptly broke up with Rachael Kirkconnell, announcing it via an Instagram post without warning, it took Kirkconnell just two weeks to show up on Call Her Daddy. That’s how she told the world she was blindsided by James, reflecting on what she thought had gone wrong in their relationship. The conversation immediately endeared her to the fandom, which had years earlier turned on her after photos of her attending an antebellum-themed party in college resurfaced online.

“I always am of the opinion that you want to be above the fray.”

While a divorce storyline or a podcast moment can reveal a lot of new information, fans are often left in the dark when the situation involves a legal case. If custody or finances are on the line, it’s easier to navigate the legal process by avoiding the press or publicly disparaging your former partner. Love Is Blind’s Alexa Lemieux revealed very little about her divorce from Brennon during a recent appearance on the He Said, G Said podcast, likely being careful of what she said since the two share a daughter.

“I always am of the opinion that you want to be above the fray,” says Aliette Carolan, a family law attorney who handles high-profile cases. “At the end of the day, judges are people, and their biases are formed, not intentionally, but it’s human nature, right? And so it’s always better to be able to walk into the courtroom and say, ‘I did everything as correctly as I could, whether it was in the media or in my relationship with the other parent.’”

Seize the moment — even if you’re the villain

No matter how clean or messy, a breakup can be a rocket ship for reality stars on both sides. Ariana Madix parlayed the headlines into a Broadway gig and a plush hosting job for Love Island USA. (“Even if a producer had said, ‘Oh, let’s get Ariana Madix from TV, people are talking about her right now’ — OK! Great!” Madix tells Bustle. “And then I’m going to show up, I’m going to be f*cking awesome.”) But Tom Sandoval, who cheated on Madix, got a lot more buzz than ever before too, including a controversial New York Times profile and a coveted spot in Season 3 of Peacock’s The Traitors.

“Erika Jayne was a mid-tier Housewife up until her divorce and scandal. And I’m not saying that she’s become an amazing Housewife, but her profile has risen considerably ever since everything happened with Tom [Girardi] years ago,” Mandelker says. “This was the first time she was actually center stage. And then there were constant questions from the audience about how much she was in on a scandal — like, should she have divorced him earlier? And then suddenly there’s a Hulu documentary. Eventually, the scandal goes away, but the profile stays where it is, and now you’re at a new tier.”

“Yeah, I got cheated on, I struck gold!”

Even the outcome of the latest Summer House drama, in which Ciara Miller’s ex West Wilson and her best friend Amanda Batula revealed that they’re dating, sees Miller reaping the benefits of their betrayal. Not only has she landed quite a few sponsorship deals (DSW, Old Navy, and Sonic, to name a few), she was also one of the first people to be cast in the upcoming season of Dancing With the Stars, turning what was previously single-show fame into a career path.

Cashing in on low moments might seem strange to civilians, but in a way, that’s how reality TV has always worked. “They’re kind of profiting off of everything already in their real lives,” Karam says. “It’s weird how it’s become such a gold mine for people, like, ‘Yeah, I got cheated on, I struck gold!’ But I don’t think it’s unethical. The audience is naturally going to root for or against you. And if [breaking up is] one of the things that makes it happen, then that’s what makes it happen.”