Bravo offered RHOSLC's Mary Cosby a year off after her son died. She took three weeks
Mary Cosby went back to work three weeks after burying her only child. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City starts its seventh season tonight, and hours before the premiere she gave her first long account of why she turned down the year off Bravo had offered her.
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City starts its seventh season tonight at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo, streaming on Peacock from Thursday. Mary Cosby is in it. That was a decision somebody had to make in February, and the person who made it was her.
Robert Cosby Jr., her only child with her husband Robert Sr., died on February 23. He was 23. A Salt Lake City Police Department spokesperson confirmed to Us Weekly that officers were dispatched to an overdose call at 6:14 p.m. and found him dead on arrival. He had spent part of the previous season documenting his addiction on camera.
Production on season 7 stopped. When it restarted, Bravo's team told Cosby she could step away for a year without losing her place on the show. She was back on camera three weeks after he died.
Why she turned down the year
Cosby, 53, gave her first long account of the decision to Vulture in an interview published Wednesday, hours before the premiere. She did not frame staying as strength. She framed leaving as the thing that would have finished her.
"If I [take time off], then I'm gonna go darker into what I'm in. I'm gonna just sit at home, I'm gonna think about it. I'm gonna constantly be at ends: Why, what, how, when, what could I have done better, what could I have changed? I would have beat myself up."
The other half of the answer is her son. "He would want me to keep going. He would want me to shine," she told Vulture. "He'd want me to be the best I can be in whatever I'm doing in life." She says she went into shock and is not sure it has landed yet: "I don't know if it ever hit me, because I still feel my son."
The seven months between
- February 23 — police respond to an overdose call at 6:14 p.m.; Robert Jr. is pronounced dead at 23.
- Days later — the family's statement: "Our beloved son Robert Jr. has been called home to the Lord."
- Three weeks later — Cosby returns to filming, having turned down a year's leave.
- September 16 — season 7 premieres, 8 p.m. ET, Bravo.
What she describes of those weeks is mostly other people at her door. Bronwyn Newport arrived with her mother. Lisa Barlow sent food, then baskets, then more food. "In some ways I felt like I ended up encouraging them," Cosby said. "I found strength in them coming to see me, talking to me, keeping me going."
"I feel him safe. I feel him tucked away. I feel him away from danger, so a part of me can rest."
She told People that what she wants out of the season is for viewers to see that she stayed upright. "This could have killed me, and it should have killed me. It was designed to at least let me fall, and I didn't." Whether the edit gives her that is Bravo's call, starting tonight.
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