Why watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is good for you

Are you secretly sitting in a corner on your phone watching The Real Housewives because you are actually ashamed of it? You don't have to anymore, because the first person who says to you: ‘Are you watching those plastic women again?’ you just send this article to them. Because watching The Real Housewives makes you really smart.

1. Your English improves by leaps and bounds
The Netflix series are still subtitled, but when you switch to Hayu.com to binge the other seasons, it's English, English, English all the time. I turn on the English subtitles and I must say: it does a lot for my English vocabulary. Of course, you can speak a bit across the border, but you don't learn this everyday gossip at school. Especially Lisa Vanderpump's British accent is great for your British accent.

2. You learn a lot about psychological group processes
The newcomer is always the disruptor and the target. You also see that the status quo that is often reached at the end of a season (everything has been talked out to death and ultimately forgiven) is immediately disturbed as soon as a new person, no matter how sweet and innocent they may be, peeks around the corner. Also interesting: the people who hated each other the most eventually become each other's best friends.

Also interesting: when one does something to the other (like Dorit giving a tiny thong to Erika because she once sat without underwear in front of Dorit's husband and caught his attention), it doesn't mean that she can appreciate such an act for herself. Because in season 8, Dorit receives a ‘strap on’ from Camille, because Dorit once told her that she should use one. Highly offended (I told you: my English improves by leaps and bounds) she was. Anyway, really interesting.

3. You are back up to date with the American entertainment industry
Because the wife of the man who cheated with O.J. Simpson's wife (are you still with me?) is participating, the lawyer of Erin Brockovich, the daughter of John Mellencamp (who by the way is back in a relationship with Meg Ryan): oh dear, you are so in the know.

4. You are happy with your own life
Despite all those houses, Rolls Royces, and Hermès bags: they have the same whining as we do. Or maybe even more. And in every season, someone is getting divorced or someone has lost a nephew/sister/father to alcohol and drugs. And how beautiful is your kitchen compared to that oak junk? So you not only become smarter, but also more satisfied.

I could almost say amen to that.