Judge guts ‘Real Housewife’ Leah McSweeney’s toxic workplace claims against Bravo

MANHATTAN (CN) — A New York federal judge on Monday drastically trimmed a discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against Bravo brought by one of the former stars of hit reality series “The Real Housewives of New York City,” Leah McSweeney, with just three civil counts advancing beyond motions to dismiss.

The former “Real Housewives” cast member sued Bravo Media, NBCUniversal Media, and executive producer Andy Cohen in February 2024, accusing show's producers of “guerilla-type psychological warfare,” including pressure to drink that fueled her to relapse into alcoholism — and then bad-mouthing her performance on the reality as "boring" when she got sober.

During oral arguments in November 2024, lawyers for Bravo insisted the First Amendment shielded the network from McSweeney’s toxic workplace suit.

Granting motions to dismiss on more than half of McSweeney's 33 civil counts, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman mostly concurred with the companies’ First Amendment rights to produce a reality television show based on drinking and consequently the right to "determine that their vision can be conveyed only by showing actual alcohol consumption."

“Defendants have established, from the face of the complaint, that they had a First Amendment right to choose to make a show that celebrated a party life and the drinking of alcohol and to determine that their vision could be best conveyed through reality television and not through scripted scenes,” he wrote in the 100-page opinion. “They had a corresponding right to cast only persons who could consume large quantities of alcohol.”

“Casting a person who could act out drinking but imposes limits on her actual drinking would interfere with the producers’ First Amendment rights to deliver an authentic message,” the Trump-appointed judge added. “To hold otherwise would be to limit the types of messages and experiences that could be authentically portrayed.”

McSweeney's lawyer Gary Adelman expressed gratitude to the judge for "his care in his 100 page decision that kept the majority of the major claims...against the defendants and continues to give full life to Leah's lawsuit and another step closer to holding the defendants accountable."

"While we disagree with his findings on the minor claims and will certainly be filing an amended complaint to address his questions, this decision is not a scorecard, it was an affirmation that there are serious claims and that they will proceed in court," the lawyer said in a statement Monday evening.

McSweeney says she was fired after starring in seasons 12 and 13 of “The Real Housewives of New York City” from 2020 to 2021 because she refused to relapse into alcohol use disorder for the following season.

She said the defendants “employed psychological warfare intentionally weaponized to break Ms. McSweeney’s psyche,” particularly when she was intimidated and prevented from visiting her dying grandmother through threats to cut her pay or fire her if she left the filming location.

Producers Andy Cohen, Lisa Shannon, John Paparazzo, and Darren Ward were named in McSweeney’s complaint as co-defendants alongside corporate entities Bravo Media, Warner Bros. Discovery, Shed Media, and NBCUniversal.

Ruling on a motion to dismiss, Liman advanced counts — a disability discrimination claim, a hostile work environment claim, and a reasonable accommodation claim — only pertaining to the corporate defendants.

McSweeney’s reasonable accommodation claim accuses the network of failing to facilitate her participation in AA meetings while in Thailand during the filming of "Real Housewives"-spinoff "The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip."

Judge Liman dismissed McSweeney’s claims for religious discrimination based on one lunch in Thailand at which every product was cooked in pork substances and no alternatives were provided.

He ruled that she did not sufficiently claim that she was served the non-Kosher meal intentionally because of her recent conversion to Judaism.

“Plaintiff offers no other context or background which would suggest that the defendants were motivated by antisemitism when they served her pork at a single lunch in Thailand, a country whose cuisine is widely known for featuring pork and shellfish,” he wrote.

Her complaint seeks unspecified damages for mental, emotional, and physical pain along with impairment of life’s joys and lost future earnings.

Representative for neither Bravo did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.

McSweeney founded the women's streetwear line Married to the Mob in 2004 before starring in the Bravo series in 2020.

She published her memoir, “Chaos Theory: Finding Meaning in the Madness, One Bad Decision at a Time,” in 2022.