Lifestyle
A Guide to Bravo’s New Shows, Including “Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition”
It is a good time to be a Bravo fan.
This week, the reality television network best known for its “Real Housewives” franchise ordered a slate of new shows that seem to have something for everyone. There are new spinoffs featuring familiar stars, reboots of old series and even a crossover phenomenon.
Here’s what is known so far about the four new shows.
‘The Real Housewives of Rhode Island’
Fans have long speculated that the network would announce a new location for “Real Housewives,” its flagship franchise of series that document the personal and professional lives of a group of women in a specific city or region. Many seemed to think Chicago would be considered, but the network surprised everyone this week by announcing “The Real Housewives of Rhode Island” as the 11th location in the franchise.
Bravo described the women who would be featured on the show as: “A tight-knit circle of Rhode Islanders who have deep community roots and families that go back generations. With aspirational lives, thriving businesses and tangled family dynamics, these decade-long friendships prove that in a state this small, there’s no escaping your past … or each other.”
The cast and premiere date have yet to be officially revealed, but fans are already speculating on social media, with unverified lists of potential women.
‘Ladies of London’
After eight years off the air, Bravo announced that “Ladies of London” — imagine a “Real Housewives” show but with British royalty, international socialites and American expats — was returning to the network. “As tradition clashes with the fast-paced globalized world, these power players redefine what it means to be a woman of status in one of the most iconic cities in the world,” the news release said.
Bravo has not revealed who will be included in the cast, but it’s unlikely to feature the original show’s socialite star, Caroline Stanbury, as she’s left Britain for the United Arab Emirates as a member of “The Real Housewives of Dubai.”
‘The Valley: Persian Style’
Who knew the San Fernando Valley was such a hotbed for interpersonal drama? After the success of the “Vanderpump Rules” spinoff show “The Valley,” which follows the lives of married Bravolebrities living in the suburbs of Los Angeles, there’s now “The Valley: Persian Style.” The new offering is basically two spinoff shows combined: “The Valley” and “Shahs of Sunset,” a show that aired from 2012 to 2021 and followed the lives of Persian influencers in Los Angeles. “The Valley: Persian Style” will feature the former “Shahs of Sunset” stars Reza Farahan, Golnesa Gharachedaghi (who goes by GG) and Mercedes Javid (who goes by MJ).
The cast members “share a deep connection to their Persian culture, something that runs just as strong in the group of friends they now call family,” the new release for the show said. “As they take on the next stage of life in the Valley, their world is bigger, their circle is bolder and their challenges are more real than ever.”
“Love you all and so happy to be back and REPRESENTING,” Ms. Gharachedaghi wrote on Instagram after the announcement, while Mr. Farahan posted “Coming home to Bravo feels so good!”
‘Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition’
The last new series Bravo announced is also a combination of two franchises: Bravo’s “Real Housewives,” and “Wife Swap,” an ABC reality show that aired from 2004 to 2010 in which two wives leading very different lives swapped children, husbands and homes. In this new iteration, Real Housewives will trade lives with real housewives, which Bravo’s release said would lead to “laugh-out-loud moments, personal epiphanies and an opportunity to see if the grass is truly greener.”
Bravo has been scant on details — including which Housewives will participate and when the show will premiere — but fans are already building their dream casts.
Lifestyle
Bill Maher is getting the Mark Twain Prize after all
Satirist Bill Maher is this year’s recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Maher will receive the award at the Kennedy Center on June 28th. The show will stream on Netflix at a later date.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
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Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Bill Maher will be receiving the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor after all.
There’s been some confusion about whether the comedian and longtime host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher would, indeed, be getting the top humor award. After The Atlantic cited anonymous sources saying he was, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called it “fake news.” But today the Kennedy Center made it official.
“For nearly three decades, the Mark Twain Prize has celebrated some of the greatest minds in comedy,” said Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations in a statement. “For even longer, Bill has been influencing American discourse – one politically incorrect joke at a time.”
Is President Trump, chair of the Kennedy Center’s board, in on the joke?
Maher once visited Trump at the White House and he tends to be more conservative than many of his comedian peers but after their dinner Trump soured on Maher, calling him a “highly overrated LIGHTWEIGHT” on social media.
Maher’s acerbic wit has targeted both political parties and he’s been particularly hard on Trump recently, criticizing his decisions to wage a war with Iran and his personnel choices.
“Trump said, ‘when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.’ Um, who’s ‘we?,’” Maher said in a recent monologue.
Past recipients of the Mark Twain Prize include Conan O’Brien, Dave Chappelle, Jon Stewart, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy and Carol Burnett.
In a statement released through the Kennedy Center, Maher said, “It is indeed humbling to get anything named for a man who’s been thrown out of as many school libraries as Mark Twain.”
Maher will receive the Mark Twain Prize at the Kennedy Center on June 28. The show will stream on Netflix at a later date.
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Suit asks court to force Trump administration to use ‘The Kennedy Center’ name
Workers react to the media after updating signage outside the Kennedy Center on Dec. 19, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
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Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio is asking a federal court in Washington, D.C., to force President Trump and the board and staff of the Kennedy Center to revert to calling the arts complex The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The motion, which Beatty filed on Wednesday, asks a federal circuit court judge to reverse the Trump administration and the center’s current board and staff’s decision to call the complex “The Trump-Kennedy Center.”
In the filing, Beatty’s attorneys wrote: “Can the Board of the Kennedy Center — in direct contradiction of the governing statutes — rename this sacred memorial to John F. Kennedy after President Donald J. Trump? The answer is, unequivocally, ‘no.’ By renaming the Center — in violation of the law — Defendants have breached the terms of the trust and their most basic fiduciary obligations as trustees. Shortly after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Congress designated the Kennedy Center as the ‘sole national memorial to the late’ President in the nation’s capital.”

In a statement emailed to NPR Thursday, Roma Daravi, the vice president of public relations for the Kennedy Center, wrote: “We’re confident the court will uphold the board’s decision on the name change and the desperately needed renovations which will continue as scheduled.” NPR also reached out to the White House for comment, but did not receive a reply.
In December, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the complex would heretofore be called “The Trump-Kennedy Center.” Although the new moniker was never approved by Congress, the Center’s website and publicity materials were immediately updated to reflect the administration’s chosen name, and the same day as Leavitt’s announcement, Trump’s name went up on the signage of the complex’s exterior, over that of the slain President Kennedy.
Later that month, Rep. Beatty who serves as an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees, sued Trump, members of the Kennedy Center board appointed by Trump, and some ex-officio members, arguing that the complex’s name had been legislated by Congress in 1964. Wednesday’s motion is part of that lawsuit.

In a press release sent to NPR on Wednesday, Rep. Beatty said: “Donald Trump’s attempt to rename the Kennedy Center after himself is not just an act of ego. It is an attempt to subvert our Constitution and the rule of law. Congress established the Kennedy Center by law, and only Congress can change its name.”
For many patrons, artists and benefactors of the Kennedy Center, the name change was the last straw in politicizing the performing arts hub. Following the White House announcement of the new name, many prominent artists withdrew planned performances there, including the composer Philip Glass (a Kennedy Center Honors award recipient, who received his prize during the first Trump administration), the famed Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz and the 18-time Grammy-winning banjo master Béla Fleck.
The Washington National Opera (WNO), which had been in residence at the Kennedy Center since 1971, also severed its ties in January after ticket sales dropped precipitously. Earlier this month, WNO artistic director Francesca Zambello told NPR, “We did try as best as we could to encourage [the patrons] that we are a bipartisan organization, but people really voted with their feet and with their pocketbooks. And so we realized that there was really no choice for us.”

On Monday, a coalition of eight architecture and cultural groups also sued Trump and the Kennedy Center board in federal court over the complex’s scheduled closing in July for unspecified renovations. Their suit seeks to have the White House and board members comply with existing historic preservation laws, and to secure Congressional approval before moving ahead with the renovation plans.
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