On a recent episode of Page Six’s Virtual Reali-Tea series, a conversation unfolded that shed light on a troubling off-screen incident involving cast members of The Real Housewives of Orange County. The show’s newest star, Katie Ginella, a Korean adoptee and the first Asian American on the series, revealed her frustration with a social media post made by her co-stars, Jennifer Pedranti and Gretchen Rossi.
The video, which has since been removed, showed Pedranti and Rossi at a gym, pretending to do martial arts while mouthing along to what some viewers identified as stereotypical Asian sounds. The actresses also, in Ginella’s words, made “Asian faces.”
‘A Very Inappropriate Video’
Ginella, who is of Korean descent, did not mince words about the content. “There’s a very inappropriate video going around where two girls are pretending to fight, squinting their eyes and making Asian faces to Asian sounds,” she said.
The incident was particularly hurtful for Ginella, who, in her first season on the show, has found herself in a series of confrontations with other women on the cast. These on-screen battles, she explained, have stirred up difficult feelings from her childhood. “You know, I’m the ‘only.’ I’m the very first Asian American on Orange County, I’m the very first Korean adoptee,” Ginella said. “So being singled out from this cast, it’s all too familiar.”
#RHOC Katie Ginella speaks out on Jennifer Pedranti and Gretchen Rossi’s ‘hurtful’ anti-Asian videohttps://t.co/468r1S9SCo pic.twitter.com/lyVOKEsq4O
— Brightly (@BrightlyAgain) August 5, 2025
The video was posted at a time when Ginella was already feeling singled out on the show. “I think these women were looking for anything to point out that I’ve done wrong,” she told Us Weekly.
Rossi, who was on the show until 2013, defended the video. In a statement to Page Six, she said, “The video we made was not directed at Katie and was not meant to be hateful. Once it was addressed to us that it could be taken offensively, we took it down immediately.”
For Ginella, the video felt like a painful reminder that even in 2025, she still has to contend with racial stereotypes. “It’s very hurtful and very inappropriate,” Ginella said. “It’s 2025, and I think we should read the room.”
