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Leah Remini is coming to Bravo!

Season 16 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is adding two new (famous) faces.

Remini is recently divorced following a marriage that spanned decades. She is also famous for her anti-Scientology advocacy.

This casting decision is a genuinely good move by Bravo.

Welcome to ‘Real Housewives,’ Leah Remini!

Andy Cohen has been cooking!

Bravo has selected the cast of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for the upcoming Season 16.

Two new women are joining. Neither are strangers to cameras, and most viewers will recognize one if not both.

One is Million Dollar Listing star Tracy Tutor.

The other is Leah Remini, famous actress and famous anti-Scientology activist.

Normally, we’d have to quibble (however politely) about reports on casting.

However, when the news broke on Instagram, Remini replied.

“It’s true!!” she wrote, sharing the post so that her own followers wouldn’t have to find out from someone else.

The Season 16 cast will also include Kyle Richards, Erika Jayne, Dorit Kemsley, Bozoma Saint John, Sutton Stracke, and Rachel Zoe.

We’ll be seeing Jennifer Tilly as a “Friend of” this season. Unfortunately, we can also expect Kathy Hilton to show up as well. (We’re not Kathy haters, but she does bring a weird tension to the show that’s just not as fun as it should be.)

What storylines is she likely to have?

Sometimes, we can only guess at what storylines will jump out with a cast member. That remains true of even big names in the entertainment industry.

(Who among us would have predicted Denise Richards’ biggest storyline when she was first cast?)

In the case of Lean Remini, however, we do know two big things that she has gone through that will, at the very least, inform her choices and attitudes.

The first is that she is divorced. In 2024, she and her long-time husband split after over two decades of marriage. That is an adjustment, even two years out.

More famously, Remini’s innocent questions about Shelly Miscavige’s whereabouts in 2006 led to her apparent persecutions by the Church of Scientology. Eventually, she and her family escaped from the widely condemned organization, and she has used her platform to speak out against them ever since.

Within a couple of years of escaping the Church of Scientology, Leah Remini and her immediately family converted to Catholicism.

Though Catholicism is a religion and has never, to our knowledge, been classified as a predatory business by any government entity, there are some superficial and structural similarities.

This seems like a natural leap for someone who grew up in Scientology, as both are powerful institutions that own property all over the world, have a confessional apparatus, and are deeply controversial.

It is unclear if Remini’s new beliefs will be a factor as she joins the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast, however.

We may end up seeing her work, her relationships, her activism, or even feuds as she enters her Bravo era. It could be exciting!