Now that 'Real Housewives' star Heather Gay has left the Mormon church, she has a lot to say

When a “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” castmate first described Heather Gay as a “good time girl” who exposed her breasts while attending Brigham Young University, an insulted Gay insisted that couldn’t be further from the truth. She wished that was her reputation, but the name plagued her in the early days of the Bravo series and caused a rift with Lisa Barlow, the castmate describing her that way. (The pair are close now.)

Some four years later, Gay has reclaimed the label that once irked her and titled her second book — a follow-up to her 2023 debut, “Bad Mormon” — “Good Time Girl,” out Dec. 3 via Gallery Books.

In it, Gay, 50, reveals that she was always a “good time girl” on the inside, but her Mormon faith ultimately dimmed that light; she recounts vulnerable anecdotes about bedwetting, her ex-husband throwing out her CD cases and a friendship with a lesbian named Martha. When it came to deciding which stories to tell, Gay asked herself: “How can I be honest about my marriage, honest about young motherhood, and still honor their father, their history and their story?” For her, it was a “really delicate balance.”

She considers “Good Time Girl” an opportunity for her to embrace the identity she once pushed away due to her since-abandoned Mormon faith. “It’s crazy to look back at who I was,” Gay says over the phone from her living room in Salt Lake City. “Somehow wherever you go, there you are. I couldn’t escape it.”

In an interview, Gay reflects on leaving Mormonism behind, last season’s Reality Von Tease reveal and how becoming a reality TV star changed her life, giving a shoutout to Beauty Bar + Laser, a Utah business she co-owns with Dre Robinson, along the way.

After “Bad Mormon” came out, did you know you immediately wanted to write another book?

Well, I had 10 books in me. When I wrote “Bad Mormon,” I needed to trim it down, so I was just chomping at the bit to write a second one. But really what motivated me to do it so quickly was the response we got from “Bad Mormon” and the way that that was just so fulfilling to me in so many ways, and really helped me transition out of the church. [It] really helped me through hard times with “Housewives.”

The label “good-time girl” became this scarlet letter that was following you around at the beginning of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” which you’ve obviously reclaimed. What brought you to this point, and what made it perfect for the title of this book?

There’s no question that my life has radically transformed in the last five years, and it’s because of “Housewives.” It’s because of moments like Season 1, when Lisa says, “I think she’s like, ‘Woo, a good-time girl.’” That was my first time being exposed to the world, and to have that be my reputation, I was so embarrassed and ashamed. Fast-forward five years later, when you think about the things I’ve been through on television, that was nothing. And now “good-time girl” has become the reason I’m enjoying my life. That name became what I wanted to be rather than something I was afraid of.

That makes sense. It’s been really incredible seeing you open up about finding freedom from Mormonism. Do you feel like, without this show, you would have been able to embrace yourself fully?

No, never. “Housewives” truly was the only way for me out. It rescued me because I wouldn’t have had the financial independence, and I wouldn’t have had the support. I know that sounds crazy, but the fans are so supportive and [so is] the community of “bad Mormons.” Writing the first book and seeing that community just explode in front of me became the support system that I needed in order to transition out of the faith. There are things I’m saying in this book that I was afraid to say three years ago. Every year, as I get farther away from the faith and farther away from the indoctrination, I can see more clearly.

Tell me why it was important for you to discuss your still discomfort around sex as well as the current challenges within the dating scene.

A lot of who I am on television and who I am in real life is a contradiction. I like to make jokes, I like to have all this bravado, but I’m really kind of a prude and shy. It’s these two conflicting worlds, and I grew up in such a steep purity culture that it’s just hilarious to me how what I thought was brazen and inappropriate was normal rites of passage for any teenage girl or young adult. But I always thought it made me some wicked person. So when you’re no longer looking at yourself through that lens of wickedness, passion and all the things that I thought were negative, now I can see how they affected me. But at the same time, it doesn’t mean there’s not baggage. I would love to be sexually free as my daughters are, but that was not the world I grew up in. And I want to make sure that I’m honest about it because representation matters, and I’m sure there’s other women out there who feel it and want to talk about it.

How did you select the stories to tell for this book?

I looked back on core memories in my life that I had viewed as me being an indication of my weakness, my wickedness, my deal with the devil, so to speak. And the last five years, I’ve been living outside of the church, openly not Mormon, having sex, drinking, doing things that any adult divorcée should be doing, but for me, it was [under] this umbrella of “forbidden.” That’s relatively small compared to my entire life. So I looked back at core memories I had that were shaped by shame, my perspective, and by my faith and my identity as a Mormon. I wanted to look back at those and forgive that little girl, remember her, honor her, and honor her memories and forgive myself now for why I’m the walking contradiction that I am.

How did the “receipts, proof, timeline, screenshots” moment in Season 4 of “Housewives” change your life and trajectory on the show?

I’ve always, my whole life, wanted to say that. I would hope that it earns me an honorary star among the greats in these fiery Housewives, just a star on the “Housewives Walk of Fame” in Andy’s Clubhouse. I hadn’t really thought of it on a personal level, but my immediate answer is it’s fundamentally changed my relationship with my castmates and with my friends. It absolutely transfigured it. It felt like there was something transformative that happened to our friendship and to our bond. And even though we’ve had tons of conflict and we’re still working through a lot of our residual conflict, I still feel that love and loyalty that I can only attest to that night in Bermuda and the way that we all bonded together and the way we had each other’s backs. It changed everything for me — my comfort level on the show, my joy in filming, my desire to be out and about and in my love of being a Housewife, which is my new identity in so many ways.

There are obviously instances of “Housewives” that are more produced than others. How much of what we actually saw during that Bermuda episode where Monica [Garcia] was exposed as Reality Von Tease happened in real time?

The only thing that we knew when we walked into that dinner, the four of us, was what we were able to share in that hour on the beach. And everyone addressed in the finale what they knew. But the way that they all had my back … because I had to say to them, “Listen, this information is still coming in, but I have seen it. I’ve seen the proof, I’ve seen the screenshots, it’s undeniable.” And in Housewives code, it’s like, you’re going to have to take my word on it. I mean, I couldn’t show them the dossier of information that was coming in at that time. So it was really just we knew what we had been through, and we knew what we were facing. We just supported each other in that moment. The aftermath is when we really saw the true timeline of it all — it was basically what you saw on TV except it was drawn out. It was the only time we’ve had a finale when there were no producers on the field. We had no one out there encouraging us to talk or pouring us drinks. We were out there exposed for hours and fighting about it. It was a crazy, crazy night. You had to be there to believe it. So I felt obligated to write about it, to bring the readers into as much of that behind-the-scenes experience as possible. Because living it was crazy, and I can’t even imagine watching it for the first time without having lived it.

It felt like watching “The Mole.” It was wild, and I was so impressed by it. I was like, “Wow, you could work for the FBI.”

My dad actually worked for the FBI. Maybe it’s in my DNA.

Have you been in touch with Monica at all since everything?

No. We did have an ongoing legal battle, but we had a summary judgment and the judge awarded us, in our favor, everything. So I think that’s going to be my last contact with her. She came to a deposition, and that’s the last time I’ve seen her. But we didn’t speak.

How often do you hang out with the other cast members when you’re not filming?

Well, more than I’d like. The truth is, I do hang out with Meredith [Marks] whenever she’s in town because she’s like ships in the night. You’ve got to enjoy and see Meredith when she’s there. Lisa had an opening for her Vida lounge, and I was first in line. We try to actually go to dinner or drinks, all of us, whenever we are in full glam. We don’t like to waste the makeup. So if we had a press day, had an appearance or had confessionals, we’ll text each other and be like, “Do you want to grab drinks? I don’t want to waste the makeup.” Salt Lake City’s a very small town, and we see each other a lot inadvertently or friends of friends a lot. It’s a close community.

You still have friends who are involved with Mormonism. What’s your relationship with the religion now?

It’s really complicated, and it’s really charged. My friends still in the church who are still friends with me just don’t talk to me about the show. They don’t talk to me about the book. They talk to me about my kids, my house, my yard or my outfit. You feel pretty invisible. In this community, it mostly affects my kids. I had to go to my daughter’s concert choir performance and it was held in a beautiful acoustic space, which happens to be the Mormon Tabernacle. And guess what? The Mormon Tabernacle is staffed by Mormon volunteers, Mormon hosts, Mormon ushers, and they’re all in Mormon clothes with their tags. Even if they did recognize me, they wouldn’t acknowledge it. So I’m just going to go to my child’s concert feeling like I shouldn’t have a bag over my head or I’m not worthy to be there. Even though it’s open to the public, it’s a free concert and they would say everyone’s welcome. But because of the position I’ve taken, and the things I’ve said, I feel like a traitor. And that’s my daily life. I feel like I’ve let down the experience for myself and my kids because everything in my community is built around Mormonism.

That’s so tough. Something you address in the book is using Ozempic, weight loss and how people have treated you differently since. Why was it important for you to address this?

I wanted to address it because, once again, it’s a walking contradiction where I publicly announce to the world that I’m on Ozempic and what the experience is like and how I’ve lost weight, but then in the next, “but don’t talk about my body.” So it just felt like a really charged topic. Body positivity changed my life and made it a safer world where I could even feel comfortable going on television and I’d embrace who I was. But I also always wish I could fit into smaller clothes. It’s just this contradiction. I could see where I was at, but I wouldn’t have told anyone about Ozempic if it hadn’t worked. It felt like I had to share it because it was, once again, a walking contradiction. You were happy representing the midsize girls, and now you’ve somehow betrayed that community by losing weight. Like I said in the book, regardless of my pants size, my problems never shrink accordingly.

What is your perspective on “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives”?

I love them because they are younger, braver and more evolved than I was when I thought I could be a Housewife and just wear clothes that looked like I might be wearing my garments and carry milk around the cocktail parties. That world where you can live both ways. I am excited to see what happens to them in their marriages and their lives because I’m on the other side of it now. I know what it was like to be a young Mormon mom, and it’s really, really hard.

Have any of those cast members been in touch with you since the show aired?

No, they haven’t reached out for advice, which is disappointing, because they don’t see themselves as “bad Mormons.” That’s what’s interesting about our faith: that they’ll see themselves as bad Mormons eventually, the world will tell them they are. I know Demi [Engemann] through Angie Harrington and her ex-husband, Bret, so I’ve seen her at 4th of July parties and Christmas get-togethers because they’re really friendly. But that’s it. I’m going to try to get all of [the cast] to come to Beauty Lab though. These are my potential customers and influencers, and they’re gorgeous.

In the current season of “Housewives,” there is a notable rift between you and Bronwyn [Newport]. Where do you guys stand now?

Oh, Bronwyn. They’re pretty shitty. I’ll just say that, and I’m not just referring to her house. I mean, it’s not that deep. She hasn’t grown on me yet. Where I may have empathy, it doesn’t mean I have affection.

What is your perspective on marriage now?

It’s a farce, and run from it. I think marriage is like religion. It benefits straight white men, but it benefits men. Financial independence gives you choices.

What do you want for yourself and your life in the future?

It makes me emotional to have someone ask that because for so long, I just never had a future. Even when I started “Housewives,” I just thought episode to episode, season to season. Every day feels like I’m on borrowed time. Right now I’m in this honeymoon period. My girls are adults. They are my best friends. They are so happy. I’ve broken these generational chains, and my hope and my dream now is to enjoy this life we’ve created together for as long as possible. They’re the reason that I’ve survived, and they’re the reason I’m here today.