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Briana Culberson Opens Up About Her RHOC Days, Why She Stopped Filming, and *That* Family Van
Vicki Gunvalson’s daughter reflected on her early days filming The Real Housewives of Orange County.
In 2004, Briana Culberson was a high school student watching “some former friends” navigate their friendships, relationships, and family drama on MTV’s Laguna Beach. Little did she know, her own young adult experience would soon be in the spotlight when The Real Housewives of Orange County premiered two years later.
For Vicki Gunvalson’s then-18-year-old daughter, “reality TV was just starting to become kind of exciting, or something that people were talking about, so it was like a whole new world,” she told BravoTV.com in a July interview. However, when the opportunity to film RHOC came about, fame wasn’t something that interested her.
“I didn’t, like, want to be on TV,” Briana explained. “I didn’t want to be recognizable or anything. I think I’m too simple for that. My mom, on the other hand, just absolutely loved it. Had to do it.” Ultimately, Briana shared, “It was a family decision.”
Although Briana agreed to having parts of her life filmed for the show, she admitted, “I had no idea what I was doing. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.”
As filming began and RHOC formed into the series viewers know today, Briana shared, “I became a woman on TV, and that was very unexpected.”
Briana Culberson reflects on her RHOC experience
Although Briana quickly became comfortable with the cameras in her home, she noted her experience would have been drastically different had she been filming as a teenager in today’s world.
“I’m glad the show started when I was 18, because it would have been a lot different if I was on the show younger and social media was a factor,” she said. “I can’t imagine social media as a young teenager to begin with, but add being on television and that would have been so much more stressful. So I think I came in at a good time.”
Looking back now, Briana says, “It’s definitely cool to have my years of 18 to 30 documented on TV.” Of course, those years include a mix of moments she doesn’t want to rewatch today as well as some standout favorites.
Briana Culberson reflects on the “family van” scene from RHOC Season 1
One scene in particular is just as iconic to Briana as it is to RHOC fans today (watch the video above to relive it). “The family van obviously is hilarious, because that is my whole life with my mom,” she said. “That family van moment wasn’t like, ‘Oh, remember that one time Mom acted really crazy and was yelling at the guy on the phone?’ No, that’s my whole life, even to this day. She doesn’t like something at a restaurant, everybody knows about it.”
“So it’s funny to me because that’s such a big moment to so many people because they think that was so outrageous, that was so hilarious,” she continued. “To me, that was my whole childhood. So I like that people got to see that little piece of my mom.”
Have Briana Culberson’s kids seen RHOC?
While Briana loves to rewatch those moments of her mom, she isn’t quite ready for her own children to look back at her time on the show. “My kids are getting older. They’re 10, 9, and then 2 and a half, and 1, but my 10- and 9-year-olds don’t know really anything about the show,” Briana explained. “[People] recognize them, or another mom will say, ‘Oh, your mom’s on that show,’ so they get curious, and they’ve asked me to watch some episodes.”
Briana opted to show them the series premiere, in which she was getting ready to go to prom with her high school boyfriend. “I was getting my hair done and my mom was telling me, ‘Don’t have sex tonight,’” Briana said, describing the scene she unintentionally showed her older kids before quickly turning it off. “I’m like fumbling for the remote like, ‘OK! Let’s go swimming or something!’”
“I could not remember that that was on the episode,” she said with a laugh. “So I was just like, ‘Oh, I’ll just show them the first one.’ Of course my kids are making fun of me. They’re like, ‘You look weird.’ I’m like, ‘I was 18.’”
The kids were also quick to point out that Vicki “looks different” today than during her first season because, as Briana put it, “she’s had a lot of plastic surgery.”
“So they were quite confused,” Briana quipped.
Although showing her kids the episode didn’t go as planned, Briana explained, “I’m not ashamed of it or embarrassed of [the show]. It’s just not something we talk about day to day.”
Briana Culberson explains why she stopped filming RHOC
Briana’s experience filming RHOC was an overall positive one, but there came a point when she knew it was time to step away from the cameras.
“We had to move so much with the military and everything. In the first couple years of their lives, [Ryan] was deployed, and I had to take a leave of absence from work because he was gone for eight months at a time," she said. "So we were all over the place, and in my head I was like, ‘I really don’t want to add the stress of trying to teach toddlers to be on their absolute best behavior because cameras are in the house… They were already going through so much.”
Today, Briana feels she “made the right decision” to live life off-camera, “at least for now.”
Would Briana Culberson return to reality TV?
Although Briana and her family are enjoying their life in Oklahoma away from the cameras these days, Briana hasn’t ruled out a return to the small screen. “I never completely emotionally close the door to reality TV,” she said. “I just think that I just wanted to take the time and just kind of step away and have a quieter life for my kids.”
In Growing Up Bravo, the grown-up kids of Bravo stars pull back the curtain on their experiences. They share insight into what it’s like to have a Bravoleb as a parent and offer a glimpse into what their lives look like today.
