Ratings: ‘Real Friends Of WeHo’ Fails To Impress, Falls Behind Recent MTV Premieres

mtv rupaul's drag race season 15 ratings, Real Friends Of WeHo ratings, RuPaul's Drag Race ratings, MTV, Real Housewives ratings

MTV’s Real Housewives knockoff, Real Friends Of WeHo, failed to gain any traction in the ratings, falling behind other recent network premieres including Help! I’m In A Secret Relationship and Buckhead Shore.

Episode 1 of Real Friends Of WeHo earned a 0.06 in the P18-49 demo on Friday night (January 20) losing much of its RuPaul’s Drag Race lead-in, according to just-released numbers from Nielsen.

Drag Race, meanwhile, earned a strong 0.22 in the P18-49 demo and 578,000 live viewers, landing at the number 6 spot on cable on Friday night.



Click Here for more of the latest Reality TV Ratings.

The MTV docuseries promises to “Go deep into the lives of successful LGBTQ+ personalities Brad Goreski, Todrick Hall, Curtis Hamilton, Dorión Renaud, Jaymes Vaughan and Joey Zauzig as they reveal their most authentic selves to their friends, families and one another,” according to an official network description.

The numbers for Real Friends Of WeHo’s debut fall behind other recent MTV series premieres including Help! I’m In A Secret Relationship! (0.09 / 230,000), Teen Mom: Family Reunion (0.19 / 463,000), Teen Mom: Girls Night In (0.11 / 315,000), Teen Mom: The Next Chapter (0.08 / 203,000), and the series even failed to top the pretty-terrible Jersey Shore spinoff Buckhead Shore in the demo (0.07 / 123,000).

Immediate backlash

Unfortunately for the cast (and MTV executives), the low ratings are not the only worry plaguing the launch of Real Friends Of WeHo. After the cast was announced, the show faced vocal backlash from the LGBT community for choosing to cast Todrick amid his performance on Big Brother and allegations he has failed to pay bills and employees in the past. Actor Chris Salvatore also alleged he was fired from the show after the cast refused to film with him due to his presence on OnlyFans, adding to the backlash.



In the run up to the show’s premiere, it seemed like the series was facing an onslaught of negative publicity and a Deadline report explaining that Season 15 of Drag Race would be 60-minutes instead of the previous 90-minute episodes in favour of launching the West Hollywood-based series certainly did not help things.

Real Friends Of WeHo airs Fridays on MTV behind RuPaul’s Drag Race.