Mary Cosby has a knack for causing drama with her often outlandish comments, harsh criticisms and bold life choices.
Since joining “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” in 2020, Cosby has gotten herself into quite a bit of trouble.
From body-shaming her co-stars to being accused of running her church like a “cult,” read below to see Cosby’s most controversial moments.
Marrying her step-grandfather
Cosby first turned heads when fans learned she married her step-grandfather so she could inherit her family’s Pentecostal Church.
Her fellow cast members talked about the unconventional marriage throughout Season 1, but Cosby reminded the ladies that her husband, Robert Sr., is not her “blood grandfather.”
“I did marry him,” she told co-star Heather Gay in Season 1. “I didn’t want to, Heather. I didn’t want to. That’s weird to me. But [my grandmother] really did want me to, so I obeyed her. I trusted every word.”
Cosby later explained at the Season 1 reunion that her grandmother, who died in 1997, “wanted me to take her place” as the first lady of their church by marrying Robert Sr., but they both prayed for two years before deciding to fulfill her grandmother’s wishes.
“We’re happy and you can’t say or do anything to take happiness away from me because it’s hard to get. It’s very hard to find. And if you can find that in a man, it doesn’t matter where he came from,” she said.
The couple shares one son, Robert Jr.
Calling Jen shah a ‘Mexican thug’
Cosby doesn’t often apologize for her controversial comments, but she later regretted calling her former co-star Jen Shah a “Mexican thug” during Season 2 of the hit Bravo series.
Cosby’s co-star Lisa Barlow told her something Shah had said about her. It wasn’t kind, so Cosby fired back, saying Shah was “evil” and “heartless.”
Cosby then compared Shah, who is of Tongan and Hawaiian descent, to a “Mexican thug,” who “[makes] all those drugs.”
A week after the episode aired, Cosby apologized in a statement shared on her Instagram Story.
“I would like to take this opportunity to address a comment I made on the last episode of ‘RHOSLC.’ I used poor judgment in my choice of words. Please accept my apologies,” Cosby wrote.
“I was not trying to single out the Mexican culture. I am African American and I know racism first hand,” she continued while adding her words were “reckless.”
Commenting on Jennie’s ‘slanted eyes‘
One month after Cosby referred to Shah as a “Mexican thug,” she came under fire once again when she was accused of being “racist.”
Cosby was at a luncheon with Season 2 cast member Jennie Nguyen – who is of Vietnamese descent – when she told Nguyen she liked her “slanted eyes.”
“What the hell? Did Mary just say she likes my slanted eyes? Does she not know it’s inappropriate?” Nguyen said in one of the episode’s confessionals.
Cosby later doubled down on “loving” Nguyen’s eyes, while explaining that she “didn’t mean any harm” by her comment — she claimed she meant it as a “compliment.”
The comment ultimately led to Nguyen becoming so enraged that she reached her “breaking point” and threw a glass during the Season 2 finale.
Facing accusations of running a ‘cult’
Elsewhere in Season 2, Cosby was accused of running her family’s Faith Temple Pentecostal Church in Salt Lake City like a “cult.”
Former members from Cosby’s church detailed some alleged misconduct in a shocking September 2021 Daily Beast exposé.
They accused Cosby of emptying their bank accounts for her own financial gain, saying she told members they’d be “condemned to hell” if they ever left the church. They also claimed she referred to herself as God.
“It’s not a joke,” Abby, an ex-member, told the outlet. “She’s got these people terrified. That woman is the most evil thing that ever walked this Earth. You have no idea, all those smiles and s–t — that is not real.”
The allegations were eventually brought up on camera when Shah claimed that Cosby had drained her members’ funds and forced them to get “food stamps.”
“My own cousin, my first cousin, his best friend is f—king terrified. People are saying that she’s a f—king cult leader, that she has them on food stamps,” Shah told Barlow in an episode that aired on Dec. 5, 2021.
Cosby has denied that she’s running a cult and using any of her members to fund her lavish lifestyle.
“Clearly I’m not gonna get on national television, be a ‘Housewife’ and be in a cult,” she told “Entertainment Tonight” in January 2022. “Like, come on. I believe in my church. There’s no cult. My church members, they know those are false allegations. Those are ridiculous. It’s the people that are looking for fault.”
Skipping the Season 2 ‘RHOSLC’ reunion
n" >After many of the above allegations and comments came to light, Cosby broke a “Real Housewives” golden rule and ditched the show’s reunion.
Pvnew broke the news that Cosby didn’t attend the January 2022 taping, because she “did not want to confront the controversy surrounding her this season.”
“She was terrified of getting grilled about her ‘racist’ comments made toward Jennie [Nguyen] and Jen [Shah]. She also did not want to discuss the accusations that she runs a cult,” a source told us at the time.
Cosby later confirmed Pvnew’s report and said she did not want to “be beat up from one side of the story” during an interview with BroughChat later that same month.
“They said that I shine during reunions, so they held it back from me and they wanted me to go off at the reunion and answer all these one-sided questions that I didn’t even see coming, and I said, ‘I’m not doing it.'”
She also did not return for Season 3, but later stunned fans when she came back as a “friend of” in Season 4, which aired in 2023.
Body-shaming Heather Gay
During her time on the show in Season 4, Cosby was slammed for being “vile” and “classless” after she “fat-shamed” Gay on the Oct. 10, 2023 episode of “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.”
The mom of one was judging other “Real Housewives” stars’ fashion looks when Gay’s Gucci corset came up and Cosby confidently said she thought it was “fake.”
“I’ve never seen a corset in, like, a size 14,” Cosby bluntly said.
Cosby immediately faced backlash on social media, as fans called her out for her “despicable” remark.
“Mary is disgusting & vile. The fact she feels so comfortable fat shaming Heather and talking about the cast’s diet is despicable, Team Heather, get Mary off this show,” one person tweeted after viewing the “WWHL” episode.
“Unbelievably rude to comment on a woman’s size. Heather is stunning & a role model,” someone else wrote.
“I am so sick of Mary Cosby body shaming her cast mates omg she’s insufferable,” another user wrote.
Gay later clapped back at her co-star’s diss by posting a selfie in the controversial corset, as she thanked Gucci for “being so inclusive.”
Fans also took the opportunity to point out that Cosby did something similar to show newcomer Monica Niki Garcia, when she told her, “You like to eat. Every time I see, you you’re eating,” in a Season 4 episode of “RHOSLC.”
Cosby has yet to address her comments about Gay’s outfit and Garcia’s eating habits.
