We know they’re out there, but why haven’t they contacted us?
Some of D.C.’s most connected ladies have closed their door on those stealthy Bravo recruiters looking for the next crop of reality television stars.
Despite evidence Bravo has cast the “Real Housewives of D.C.,” network reps stand behind their default position that the show is in development, and the cast has not been determined.
“We go into cities and just kind of talk to influential people and buzz makers and find out who might encapsulate the kind of women that we’ve had on our previous shows,” said Bravo Communications Director Rachelle Savoia.
Housewife hopeful Terri Bollman Wyzkoski was contacted in November 2008 by a Bravo recruiter via Facebook because of her friend connections and appearances at charitable community events.
Bravo recruiter Danielle Wilkinson told the prospective housewife she was hired by “a yet-to-be-known network” that was planning a “classy type of reality show” without providing any indication of the show’s story line.
Wilkinson invited Wyzkoski to a meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel at Tysons Corner, where she conducted multiple interviews that day. She held meetings with other leads at the Georgetown Ritz.
As a single local philanthropist with a private financial consulting firm, Business Lending Solutions LLC, Wyzkoski did not fit the desperate housewife stereotype. The recruiter invited her to a mixer with Bravo executives for round two of recruitment anyway.
Wyzkoski said she declined interest in the show for privacy reasons, but recommended rumored cast member Michaela Salahi, wife of Polo Cup president Tareq Salahi.
“[Bravo] didn’t tell anyone anything for months after the interview,” Wyzkoski told Yeas & Nays.
An optimist, Wyzkoski said she believed the cast was made up of people “who are just out there” and “want to make a difference.”
For now we will have to wait anxiously to see if that’s true, and if we ever get a message in our inbox.
