How These 14 Popular Real Housewives Couples First Met

Fans of Bravo’s Real Housewives love watching the veteran cast members from each of their favorite shows in the franchise. Many of these women have been around for multiple seasons and during that time have opened their lives up to viewers, which includes their on-going relationships. In some cases the men play a large role on the show, so we’ve been able to get to know them as a couple. There are a select few who’ve been around long enough to become fan favorites, so we’ve compiled a list of the most popular Real Housewives couples and recounted all the stories of how they first met!

14. Kandi Burruss and Todd Tucker

Fans of Real Housewives of Atlanta got to watch this relationship unfold right before their eyes. Kandi Burruss and Todd Tucker met on the set of RHOA during season 4 when the girls did a trip to South Africa. Tucker was working for production at the time. “I was trying to play it cool in Africa as it’s against the rules to cross the line with the talent,” he said in a Bravo blog back in 2014. “In production that’s a big NO NO!…I loved her smile, she had a great butt! LOL! She seemed very humble and genuine.” It seemed these two just couldn’t fight fate, so Tucker quit his job and they got married in April 2014. “That was a big decision for him to have to make. He resigned, but then they came back and said they didn’t want him to quit,” said Burruss in an interview with Glamour.

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13. Jacqueline and Chris Laurita

The Real Housewives of New Jersey star and her husband, Chris Laurita, have one of the cutest relationships in the entire franchise. They met while she was modeling at a trade show in Chicago. “My coworker suggested we meet Chris and his brothers out after work they day we met,” she said in an interview with Millennium magazine back in 2014. “Chris’s brother knew my co-worker’s sister. So, she told me they were good guys and said that Chris said he wouldn’t go unless I went. I was intrigued. So I went. At dinner, we talked all night and had an instant connection. As though we knew each other forever. We talked and talked, and exchanged numbers.”

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12. Lisa Vanderpump and Ken Todd

Lisa Vanderpump and Ken Tood have the longest standing relationship in the Real Housewives franchise, easily. Dating all the way back to 1982, this Real Housewives of Beverly Hills couple met at a bar called Corks. Ken owned this bar at the time, and in typical Lisa fashion, for a good laugh she pretended to be a bouncer at the door. When Ken came to the door, she tried to charge him and he was immediately smitten with her unusual sense of humor. “She was like a breath of fresh air coming into my life,” he said in an interview with the Evening Standard back in 2002. Lisa then chimed in to say, “I thought, hello, he looks interesting.” When they met Ken was 37 and Lisa was only 21. They got married six weeks later and have been together for over 35 years!

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11. Melissa and Joe Gorga

This New Jersey couple has a love story that dates back to when Melissa was only 21-years-old on Spring Break with friends in Cancun, Mexico. “We were both there and he was there with his friends and he says that I went walking by with my girlfriends and my bikini, and he remembers everything that I was wearing like it was yesterday,” she said in an interview with Examiner. “He pointed to me and said, ‘That’s going to be my wife.’ His best friend that was with him confirmed this story all the time, so that was kind of the first time we met unofficially. Then we were back in New Jersey in the summer at a beach club and he saw me and it just went from there.” Talk about fate! Melissa and Joe tied the knot in 2004.

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10. Brandi and Bryan Redmond

Real Housewives of Dallas stars Brandi and Bryan are the cutest red-headed couple with a last name that suits them too perfectly! These high school sweethearts first met when they were both in eighth grade, but didn’t start dating until they were in high school. At the time, she was a cheerleader who was was, of course, dating the football quarterback. When her boyfriend at the time broke up with her, she turned to Bryan to make him jealous and they’ve been together ever since!

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9. Dorinda Medley and John Mahdessian

Real Housewives of New York star Dorinda Medley spent her first few seasons on the show defending her relationship with John Mahdessian, but it seems the ladies have now come to accept it and move on. In an interview with OK Magazine, Dorinda shared the story of how she met her current beau. “We belonged to a small little club and [Richard] was there with John. We were never close, but we’d always see him at this little club and say hi and have a drink and he was always nice. Then, about six months later after he died, I ran into him and he said, ‘Oh my God, how’s Richard?’ I said, ‘Well, he passed.’ He said, ‘Why don’t we grab some lunch?’ It really just developed as a friendship and after someone passes, you’re not looking to get together with someone. You’re rebuilding and he’s been such a good friend and such a great companion,” she said.

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8. Heather and Terry Dubrow

Heather and Terry Dubrow are proof that a blind set-up can sometimes actually work! During an episode of her podcast, Heather told the story of how she met her husband. She was 27 at the time when she asked her friend if she knew any Jewish doctors which then led to Terry. “He wasn’t really my type, but you know, I was like, ‘We’ll see,'” she said. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight. He was 10 years older than her and according to Heather, he didn’t dress very well, but as their relationship went on she couldn’t help falling in love with him, especially after visiting him in Newport where he was from. She realized she was going to marry him after a weekend getaway in San Francisco and Napa Valley. “From the moment I saw him at the airport, it was over. I knew I was gonna marry him. It was like we were a married couple. It’s like, we saw each other, smiled, gave each other a kiss, and it was magical, and it was done.”

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7. NeNe and Gregg Leakes

Viewers watched as this couple went from being happily married, to going through a messy divorce, and then once again being happily married — all in a short period of time! During an appearance on Bethenny back in 2014, Gregg said he met NeNe at a strip club where she was working at the time. “I picked mine up. She used to work there [at the strip club] and when I went there and I saw her…That’s not where I met her. She invited me to her job and I graciously accepted.” Once they started dating, Gregg convinced her to stop dancing. They got married the first time in 1998, but were divorced in 2011 after 13 years of marriage, and once again married in 2013.

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6. Carole Radziwill and Adam Kenworthy

Fans of The Real Housewives of New York City had a front row seat to Adam and Carole meeting for the first time and we all watched as their relationship blossomed over season 7 and onward. She showed up to her co-star LuAnn De Lesseps party in the Hamptons while filming for their show and Kenworthy was working as her personal chef for the event! “I mean, the fact that the cameras were there the second I walked into the kitchen and he turned around and said, ‘Hi, my name is Adam,’ [is] just hilarious. It was eight months later by the time [the episode] got on the air. So to watch that initial moment when we met was really like a little bit of magic. I think we had an instant chemistry, and to see that now, knowing how it all turned out is kind of cool,” said Carole. The two are currently on a ‘break’ but still seem to be spending time together.

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5. Kyle Richards and Mauricio Umansky

When Kyle Richards and Mauricio Umansky met she was engaged to someone else! The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star admitted during an interview with Andy Cohen that she was set to marry Michael Tuck, a CBS news anchor who was 24-years her senior. The two dated from 1990 to 2000, but when she met Mauricio she was absolutely smitten! She turned around her engagement ring as the two hit it off and immediately went home to break up with Tuck. She has since said it was the best decision she’s ever made and her and Mauricio have been together for over 20 years.

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4. Teresa and Joe Giudice

Like a good old school Italian couple, these two met when they were in high school. They first met when Teresa was 14 and, after 13 years of dating, they finally tied the knot in October 1999. The Real Housewives of New Jersey star has said: “I’ve known him my whole life. Our parents were friends and so we’ve known each other our whole lives. Our first date was when I was 17. I would say when I started driving, that’s when our first date was. We didn’t start [seriously] dating until I was 23.” In her memoir, Turning Tables: From Housewife to Inmate and Back Again, she also revealed she had a crush on her future husband since grade school. Joe was the “bad boy” and in grade school she would walk past his classroom with the hopes of catching a glimpse of him!

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3. Tamra and Eddie Judge

It was strange to see RHOC veteran Tamra with a new man in season 6 after she’d recently divorced her husband of 13 years, Simon Barney, who’d appeared alongside her on the show for the past three seasons. When Tamra brought Eddie Judge around the cameras, there were a lot of rumors that she was dating one of Simon’s best friends, but that wasn’t the case. It’s true Eddie knew who Simon was, but they were never ‘friends.’ In an interview with People, Tamra explained how the two met: “Eddie and I started dating about two months after Simon and I split up. I met Eddie through [business partner] Marcos. There was a rumor out there that I was dating Simon’s best friend. That wasn’t true. They’ve never been friends.” While their love story might not be all that romantic, they’ve now been married for four years!

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2. Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin

Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin are definitely one of the more popular couples in the Real Housewives franchise. These two aren’t afraid of the spotlight since they’ve both made careers out of being on-screen, and Rinna is constantly at the center of all the drama on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. In an interview with Andy Cohen in 2016, Hamlin told Andy Cohen how she nabbed a well-known Hollywood actor as her husband. Surprisingly, they didn’t meet through the business or on a red carpet somewhere, it was rather largely by chance. “Lisa was working at an eyeglass store in 1992, and she was closing up on night and I was having dinner with the owner of the store. She came in to give him the keys and that’s how we first actually met and talked,” he said.

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1. Shannon and David Beador

Everyone knows who this couple is even if they don’t watch The Real Housewives of Orange County. Shannon and David Beador joined the franchise back in season 9 and have been a source at the center of controversy ever since. In season 10, David and Shannon opened up about his affair and all of their marital troubles. In more recent seasons they seemed to have moved past it all, but are now back on unstable ground. Rewind back to happier times, these two met shortly after she moved to Orange County after attending USC. They met at a restaurant called the Quiet Woman (which was also featured in the latest season of RHOC as the scene of a huge blow-up) and later announced their engagement at this same restaurant.