Eden Sassoon's Presence on RHOBH Is Turning It Into an Uncomfortable AA Meeting

By Kara Brown | January 25, 2017 | 8:30pm

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When the 7th season of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was announced, we learned Eden Sassoon, daughter of Vidal, would be appearing as a friend and not a full time cast member. On Tuesday night’s episode it became clear why.

Oh sure, Eden seems harmless. She does a lot of yoga! She compliments people’s hair, which apparently holds more weight coming from her because her father was a revolutionary hairstylist! She buys Lisa Rinna random crystals! Dorit wants to make out with her! She has visible tattoos!

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However, it has now become obvious what she has to offer with her storyline and my god, it’s a buzzkill. Eden speaks openly about her sobriety as a recovering alcoholic as well as her sister’s drug overdose—laudable honesty rarely seen on this platform, to be sure. The issue is, once you get past her personal history, there’s really only one way for this topic to be sustainably relevant in the Beverly Hills universe, and that’s by harping on Kim Richards.

Oh Kim, you dainty little cuckoo bird. Kim, all things considered, seems great. She looks good and most of the gravel has been removed from her throat. She’s about to be a grandma and she and Kyle are on good terms. So what does Eden do? Continue to suggest that Kim is a stone’s throw away from hitting the bottle and dying.

Aside from these comments being unnecessarily morbid about someone she barely knows, the problem is Kim Richards isn’t interesting enough for this to be an even infrequent topic of conversation. Kim isn’t trying to do much. Sure, she’ll keep yelling at Lisa Rinna because what else does either of them have to do? She rolls up to the occasional party and takes her selfie with Boy George and everyone seems content to just let her have that—except for Eden.

I don’t know if Kyle enables Kim or not, but she has been increasingly open about Kim’s addiction, so to hear her say Kim is in a good place feels about as genuine as you’re going to get from this crowd. Plus, again, this isn’t all that compelling so maybe drop it, Sassoon!

Eden invited Lisa Rinna and Dorit to her “cute” home which is rich people talk for “starter property.” She showed off some shoulder and served them grey smoothies and “joked” about how she’d be happy to blend in a Xanax. Eden explained that she doesn’t drink—curiously putting those words in quotations—but is fine with medication. Okay! The ins and outs of someone’s sobriety is none of my business. See? It’s so simple.

Of course, she didn’t let up at Dorit’s sad little party for PK which consisted of some apps, champagne, a couple roses and one song from Boy George. At the party, Kim described the flurry of emotions she was feeling waiting for her grandchild to arrive—excitement and also the same feelings of worry she felt when she was pregnant.

I’ve never been a mother but this seems normal? I’m not an evolutionary biologist but I’m guessing these exact emotions are ingrained in all of us so we don’t just abandon babies when they get annoying? Seems likely!

For some reason, Eden found Kim’s reactions to be completely unfathomable and suggested her anxiety will lead her to start drinking again. Even Lisa Rinna, who cannot stand Kim, was like, “Huh? Whaaa?”

This might have gone over well if it seemed like Eden was truly trying to help Kim or have an honest dialogue about addiction. As it is, she just comes off as nosy straw-grasper.

And by golly, that’s not the end of the addictive substances talk. Like a moron, Dorit tattled to Lisa Vanderpump about the “bag of pills” Lisa Rinna pulled out at Eden’s house. Now, that was definitely crazy, but it’s not like she pulled out a sack of Valiums. Anyone can see it’s mostly enormous vitamins and we know rich ladies in Malibu fucking love vitamins. To her credit, Vanderpump smartly saw through Dorit’s bullshit attempt to be interesting.

Dorit came very close to falling into an age-old Real Housewives trap. Occasionally, actual serious subjects arise on these shows and we see how ill-equipped many of these women are to discuss them, particularly on such a large stage. Suggesting that Rinna carries around a bag of narcotics might have seemed like a good way to secure a second season if Dorit wasn’t, oh you know, lying about Rinna carrying around a bag of narcotics. As we saw last season with Yolanda, it’s almost always a losing strategy.

Meanwhile Kyle and Erika spent most of the episode having what looked like a goddamn great time in Mykonos hanging with Erika’s “boys” (which, still, ugh), having some girl talk and doing 6 am bikini photo shoots. I approve of this friendship much more than Erika’s new single.