‘RHOSLC’ Star Whitney Rose Is Faking Storylines

Controversy seems to cling to Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’s Whitney Rose. We’ve seen the Bravo star from the beginning of the show, in all five seasons, and each season she seems to be sucked into all the drama. I’m not going to lie, up until season 4, Whitney always seemed like the victim to me - she was simply roped into everyone else’s problems and gossip.

But this season, I realized a lot about Whitney that I hadn’t seen before. I’m not going to lie, watching season 5 of RHOSLC, it first seemed like Vida tequila founder Lisa Barlow was the villain in the Alibaba scandal. However, Whitney’s “podcaster friend,” whom she claims told her Lisa was the source of the rumors surrounding her jewelry brand PRISM, spoke out. And now it looks like the Alibaba storyline was made up for the show. And I don't think this is the first time Whitney may have made up a fake narrative to save her spotlight on the show.

The Alibaba scandal seems to be the “it scandal” this season, and it all started with a conversation between housewives Meredith Marks and Heather Gay. Meredith confided in Heather, Whitney’s on and off again friend and cousin, that she had seen posts on social media accusing Whitney’s jewelry brand PRISM of reselling jewelry off of cheap online retailer Alibaba as her own.

Heather immediately told Meredith to tell Whitney, but due to the broken state of their friendship, she thought it would be best if Heather told her. So she did - but it kind of backfired on Meredith. Whitney immediately blows up when she finds out about the rumors. Especially over the fact that Meredith was the one who brought it up in the first place, even though it did seem like she brought it up to Heather out of genuine concern. Once Whitney cools down with Meredith, she knows her next move is to track down who started the rumors - and this is where things get messy.

Whitney Rose and Lisa Barlow’s Infamous Alibaba Scandal

In the scene that started all the controversy, Whitney takes a phone call from her “podcaster friend” Adam, who we all know now is Adam Newell from the podcast Up and Adam! In the show, the phone conversation insinuates that Lisa was behind the Alibaba rumors. Which I think caused every fan's jaws to drop. Coming after Whitney is one thing, but coming after her business is stopping down to another level. Over the next couple of episodes, the drama surrounds Whitney and Lisa’s feud, as Whitney accuses Lisa of starting the rumors, and Lisa continues to deny it. Watching the show, you think that Whitney is the victim and Lisa is the villain - but once Adam spoke out, the whole narrative was flipped on its head.

Adam took to Instagram and Youtube shortly after the episode aired, saying Whitney had blocked him and that he had all the “RECEIPTS, PROOF, TIMELINES, SCREENSHOTS” (as Heather once said). He added that he had evidence that Whitney said some nasty things about her distant cousin Heather. Dana Wilkey also chimed in on the drama, calling Whitney a “dirty liar” on her podcast Dishing Drama. Dana goes one step further to claim that she has “receipts” which lead her to believe that Heather and Meredith were involved in circulating the rumors. Once these statements came out, I knew it was game over for Whitney. The whole thing has a fake storyline written all over it. She needed drama to keep her top dog spot on the show, and that meant throwing Lisa under the bus. I’m not sure if I believe Heather and Meredith are responsible, but I certainly know Lisa isn’t.

Whitney even doubled down on her lies in a recent episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. She reiterated that Adam did say the Alibaba rumors were spread by the Vida tequila founder, and that she feels she was “betrayed” by him. I think Whitney knows she has just been exposed for making up a fake storyline, and she’s now trying to cover it up. At least two people have now claimed they have proof that Whitney was never told that Lisa ignited the rumor. The fact that she doubled down on it proves that desperate times really call for desperate measures.

This Isn’t The First Time Whitney Rose Has Created A Storyline

Looking back on previous seasons, it seems like there’s a pattern with Whitney, especially with ruffling Lisa’s feathers. In season 3, Whitney tells Lisa “it’s rumored” that she was performing sexual favors with Utah Jazz players to get good tickets. Whitney also claims that she did not start the rumor and that Heather and a “friend of” Angie Harrington had heard the rumor also. Heather denies ever hearing the rumor or discussing Lisa’s marriage, which causes a huge rift between Heather and Whitney. When I first watched this season, I truly thought that Heather was denying her involvement in discussing the gossip because she didn’t want to get caught red-handed. Looking back on it knowing everything we know about the Alibaba scandal, Whitney could have easily made that rumor up or brought it onto the show on purpose for a storyline. And we all know that an interesting storyline means more airtime.

Another example is in season 4, on a nightmare trip to Bermuda. Heather had just published her memoir Bad Mormon, and in true Lisa fashion, she asked the group if anyone had actually read the book. Whitney decides this is the perfect opportunity to voice her opinions, and randomly blows up at Heather for “exploiting her vagina.” In one chapter, Heather talks about a time Whitney was posing in a boudoir photoshoot as a gift for her husband, Justin Rose. Whitney claimed that putting her sex life on blast while refusing to discuss her own sex life was hypocritical. To be honest, I never thought that Heather “exploited” Whitney’s sex life in the book. I had just given her the benefit of the doubt that she was simply upset about other things in her life and was lashing out. However, I see things in a different light now, and I think that Whitney randomly decided to bring that up on-camera to craft a storyline.

There seems to be a common theme with Whitney, making up drama out of thin air for a storyline - and now I’m seeing right through it. We will have to see how the rest of the Alibaba scandal plays out this season, but I have a feeling that Whitney may get exposed once and for all. Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is available to stream in the U.S. on Peacock.