Michael Rapaport Shared His Epic Love Story of How He Came to Embrace The Real Housewives

Erika Girardi revealed a lot about herself and how her husband Tom Girardi is doing when she was interviewed by Michael Rapaport on the I Am Rapaport: Stereo Podcast. As they were winding down the conversation, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills singer had a burning question of her own for the actor and Bravo superfan.

"Why the f--- do you watch the show?" she asked. 

Rapoport doesn't remember whether he first watched The Real Housewives of New York City or The Real Housewives of Atlanta "because they started melding together," but he does remember that he started watching one out of frustration one night when the football game he was watching "went wrong for me." He turned it off and went upstairs to watch with his wife and started getting engaged in the drama.

"And then I started asking my wife questions, like, 'What is she talking about? Is this real?' Because of the behavior."

"Tom watches New York," Erika admitted. "He hasn't been able to watch a lot of it, but he loves it. I'll never forget, he was lying in bed and I was coming home late from something and he goes, 'Do you guys really talk to each other like this?' I said, 'Yeah,' and he goes, 'Wow, this is intense!' He's cute, he's funny." 

After that night of the football game, Rapaport admitted, he really got sucked in: "I was enraptured, literally enraptured. I think it is exactly why television was invented."

He said that friends are always trying to get him to watch the latest show on Netflix or Amazon, but cautioning him that he has to give it until the ninth episode to get into it, but he'd rather watch any edition of the 'Wives, because there's "at least one pearl in every episode."

Now, he admitted (jokingly?), "I might like the shows more than my wife." (Yes, there are lots of dudes who embrace Bravo.)

Rapaport definitely leans on the sports analogy when discussing the 'Wives in his new book, This Book Has Balls: Sports Rants from the MVP of Talking Trash, which includes a power ranking of 'Wives. And after appearing on an episode of Wendy, Rapaport sat down with the show's Hot Topics producer Norman Baker and declared his love for Erika.

"Her first season, she was rookie of the year," he told Baker. "She was like Michael Jordan in his rookie season."