Sutton’s tips to be a Real Housewife: Be there, stick around and speak up

Appearing on the famed reality show The Real Housewives of Beverley Hills has helped Sutton Stracke finally find her own voice.

Sutton Stracke found her voice when she started as a Real Housewife Of Beverley Hills in 2020 – and, four seasons later, it’s never been louder.

So she’s got some wise words of advice for any newcomers in Sydney’s second instalment of the hit franchise, set to light up our screens next year, and that’s … stick around.

“I think one of the biggest things for the newbies is to not leave the room,” the mother of three tells Insider on Zoom from her US home.

“You’ve got to stay. Stay through the dinner. Stay through whatever it is – you got to stay because flight is often a first response.

“I think the second is to listen, because it’s so easy to let your mind start to wander, because you don’t want to listen to these people anymore,” she laughs.

Sutton Stracke found her voice on The Real Housewives Of Beverley Hills. Picture: Phylicia J.L Munn/Bravo

“But listen and then speak your mind when you want to.

“Because when you’re in polite society, as we’ve all been raised, we’re taught not to over talk someone, and in this environment, it’s different.

“It’s not going to your friend’s house for dinner – well it is, but it’s elevated, so you have to speak up, and do it in the most honest way possible.”

Stracke is known as the southern firecracker in the famed Beverley Hills group that is dealing with the divorce of Kyle Richards and marriage breakdown of Dorit Kemsley, and that’s something she can help with. So she does. That’s what Real Housewives is all about – real women, real issues, real life.

“I think a lot of times I get misunderstood within this group of women, with some of them, and I get upset with the things that they say about me, and so I will react,” she continues.

“Maybe sometimes I overreact.

“But you know, if I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be true to myself.

“So far into the season I’ve been rather calm and directed and keeping it together so that’s good … but I think that I can only hold on for so long, and then things just start coming out of my mouth,” she laughs.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

But being there for each other is what bonds them.

“We do that, as friends,” she continues. “I have had friends since I was four and it’s weird that this time in our lives as women, I see a lot of us in different friend groups going through different types of things.

“I was thinking about it today because I had a little phone meeting with my ex-husband, and I’m still going through it.

“I’m still there, there are still remnants of (the old) me.

“I mean, we’ve been divorced for seven years but there’s still the old Sutton will appear … and I have to struggle with that.

“I’m still a work in progress.”

Figuring life out as a single parent in the spotlight and under public scrutiny is no easy feat but, looking back, she’s loved being part of the RHOBH.

“I really want to be real, but we get sometimes put in these very strange predicaments. People love to ask me ‘is it scripted?‘, and I’m like ‘are you kidding me?’. I mean, you can’t write this stuff. But I love doing this.

“It’s one of the great blessings of my life and it came at a really difficult time for me, and it has given me such an opportunity to be a stronger woman. It’s given me an opportunity to talk about my father killing himself and kind of spreading the hope for victims of suicide.

“It’s given me the opportunity to build a business for myself and be wrong as an independent, divorced woman – and all those things are just so worth it.”

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