The Shannon Beador/John Janssen/Alexis Bellino Love Triangle Will Be the Plot of ‘RHOC’ Season 18

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | December 27, 2023 |

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | December 27, 2023 |

Shannon Beador of Real Housewives of Orange County has been “eliminating toxic and unhealthy things” (and people) from her life after her DUI arrest in September. Bravo fans around the world heard those words and knew she was talking about her ex, John Janssen, as we’d just witnessed the breakdown of their relationship on and off the show. Janssen was at best a silent mass of chino in the corner of the screen, and at worst clearly not even a little bit in love with Beador and just there for fame.

Well, his fifteen minutes aren’t up quite yet, because he just went public with his new girlfriend, Alexis Bellino, who just so happens to be a former RHOC star, and one who is rumored to be returning to the show. While Beador and Bellino were never on the show at the same time, Bellino has a history with Beador’s bestie, Tamra Judge, who left the show and then came back again for season 17. During a fight on season seven Judge famously branded Bellino “Jesus Jugs.”

“I think she would sell her own mom to stay on the show,” Bellino said of Judge most recently, after Judge claimed castmate Heather Dubrow was campaigning for Bellino to be brought back instead of her. “Tamra and I definitely have a past.”

That past includes a lawsuit for defamation, filed by Bellino’s ex-husband, against Judge and Beador. That is precisely why this relationship is so sketchy.

“John is very well aware of a lawsuit that I was involved in with Jim Bellino, and Alexis was involved in that lawsuit. I was financially and emotionally devastated for years. And I won. But it devastated me financially. And I’m a single mom. John’s aware of that,” Beador said.

But Judge said she and Bellino reunited and “squashed the beef” at BravoCon, and she also recently admitted to being on the outs with Beador because she liked one of Alexis’s pictures on Instagram.

Apparently the lovebirds “met through mutual friends” at, wait for it, Orange County restaurant, The Quiet Woman, the very restaurant Shannon Beador was banned from for behaving most unquietly. Is there no other restaurant in Orange County?

Bellino confirmed the relationship with some Instagram posts, including a picture of the $16K “promise ring” she received from Janssen as a Christmas gift.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alexis Bellino (@alexis_bellino)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alexis Bellino (@alexis_bellino)

Bellino’s friends and current OC cast members, Emily Simpson and Heather Dubrow, would love to see Bellino return.

“I’m a proponent of it,” Dubrow said.

“I’m sorry, but bring Alexis back and let Shannon spiral out of control,” she said. She also said (because this was before Janssen and Bellino went public) that she didn’t think Bellino would “choose to pursue” a relationship with Janssen because she’s “way smarter than that.”

At that same event, Bellino said she’d “never say never” to returning to the show, and when asked what might happen if she did, she answered, “I wouldn’t start drama, the drama’s already there. I would just be. I would be my person and the drama follows.”

“I think you presence would start a little drama with Shannon Beador even if you weren’t looking for it,” the interviewer said, and she agreed. She said she “didn’t really care” about Beador’s feelings regarding Janssen, whom she’d only just met at the time.

“I have never met Shannon, I have never worked with Shannon, I wish her nothing but the best in life,” she concluded.

Welp, looks like we’re in for a classic Beador Breakdown on season 18.