Directors of ‘RHOSLC’ Star Mary Cosby Cult Series Talk Affair and Extortion Allegations: “It’s a Playbook”
Elli Hakami and Julian P. Hobbes go to church in TLC docuseries ‘The Cult of the Real Housewife’ to allege the reality TV star and her preacher husband extorted their congregation to fund her 'Real Housewives' lifestyle.
Elli Hakami and Julian P. Hobbs, directors of the new TLC docuseries The Cult of the Real Housewife — about The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Mary Cosby allegedly running a mind control cult — say they took their cue to investigate the reality TV star from the Bravo series on which she stars.
“They arrived there before we arrived there,” Hobbs tells The Hollywood Reporter about the Salt Lake City-set version of the Real Housewives series, which is now in its sixth season. RHOSLC went into its second season with a trailer where co-star Whitney Rose teased “all of the rumors are that Mary is a cult leader,” and that season included an appearance by Mary Cosby whistleblower Cameron Williams, a former member of her Faith Temple Pentecostal Church.
“Then we thought, ‘All right, let’s stress test this. Let’s dig deeper than just letting the series itself answer this question.’ And therefore, the door opened,” adds Hobbs, who runs Talos Films with Hakimi.
Among the allegations in the TLC docuseries (trailer, above) is that Mary Cosby and her husband, Bishop Robert Cosby Sr., manipulated church members into emptying their bank accounts to underwrite their purchase of mansions and an opulent lifestyle, and that Mary Cosby had an affair with Cameron Williams, who allegedly gave the Cosbys around $300,000 of his savings.
Williams made veiled allegations against Mary Cosby during his own RHOSLC appearance alongside co-stars Meredith Marks and Lisa Barlow back in 2021. He died shortly after due to complications from brain tumor surgery.
Getting former Faith Temple congregants — like the Enoch family, Mary’s sister Denise Jefferson Okinada and Mary’s cousin Dan Cosby, along with his wife Kim — to appear on camera in the Real Housewife-focused docuseries was complicated by Mary Cosby and her husband long being regarded as pillars of Faith Temple, responsible for their congregation’s spiritual salvation.
That led to feelings of guilt and shame among ex-Faith Temple members over Mary Cosby and her husband allegedly abusing their spiritual power amid claims of extortion schemes and sexual transgressions. “They believed in their leaders. They believed in Bishop and Mary being people who were their conduits to the divine, and they were the ones who were shepherding their faith for them,” Hakami argues in conversation with THR.
She and Hobbes were aided in their investigation by Daily Beast entertainment reporter Cheyenne Roundtree, who appears in the three-part TLC series now streaming on HBO Max and Discovery+. Interviews with the former followers reveal many were outraged by the contrast between the Mary Cosby they had seen leading a church founded by her beloved grandmother, Rosemary “Mama” Cosby, and the extravagant lifestyle she showed on the series.