Jennifer Pedranti Says There’s ‘No Need’ for Slade at RHOC Reunion

Jennifer Pedranti supports Gretchen Rossi’s partner Slade Smiley opting out of The Real Housewives of Orange County season 19 reunion — even though he was involved in some of the season’s most intense drama.

Jennifer, 48, exclusively told Us Weekly at BravoCon 2025 that her fiancé, Ryan Boyajian, was “never actually officially asked” to take part in the finale despite reports to the contrary.

“They mentioned it to me, like, ‘Would Ryan want to go?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, you’re not going to get Ryan there.’ This is weeks and weeks prior,” she recalled on Saturday, November 15, while attending the Las Vegas convention. “And then Ryan was like, ‘What the hell? I heard I canceled last minute.’”

Jennifer noted it was more of a question of, “Did Slade want to go?” to the RHOC reunion, because the way she saw it, Slade, 52, had a “thing” with cast member Katie Ginella and her husband, Matt Ginella.

Looking back, Jennifer told Us, “I think Slade made the right decision. There was no need for Slade to go.”

Slade’s longtime fiancée, Gretchen, 47, couldn’t agree more, exclusively telling Us on Saturday “there wasn’t” a need for him to make an appearance.

“There was nothing really to prove there,” Gretchen said. “It’s just funny [because] when Matt would say, ‘Oh, he called me 20 times in a row.’ It’s like, we literally went and looked at the phone record, and I was like, ‘What did I miss? Because you called him once, like, what am I missing here?’”

Gretchen noted that when you “know your truth,” like she said Slade does, then you “don’t feel like you have to go and stand up for it.”

“It’s just like it is what it is,” she explained. “And if he wanted to be on the show and do whatever he needed to do, that’s fine.”

Fans of RHOC know that Katie, 41, found herself at odds with nearly every Housewife during season 19, including Gretchen.

While Gretchen and Katie were friends to start the season, their relationship soured after Katie met up with Tamra Judge during episode 14 and claimed that Gretchen and Slade asked her to lie for them.

Katie alleged on the show that Gretchen told her that she was roofied at Tamra’s house 14 years prior during the infamous “naked wasted” scandal and had to go to the hospital. Gretchen, meanwhile, claimed she never said she was drugged and Katie was fabricating the truth.

“Gretchen lied,” Katie claimed during the October episode. “And Slade said, ‘Tell Katie to stick to the story. Tell her not to waver. That’s the nail in her coffin.’ … His exact words were, ‘She has to stick to the story because it’s a legal issue.’ I thought I was gonna get in trouble.”

Katie also told Tamra that her husband, Matt, got involved after feeling like his wife was being manipulated by Slade.

“All of a sudden, it went from Slade calling, calling, calling him to complete silence,” Katie alleged. “So, Matt’s like, ‘I’m gonna reach out to Slade again, and I wanna sit down with him, man to man, and be like, ‘What the f*** is going on?’”

Matt spoke his truth during part 2 of the RHOC reunion, which aired earlier this month, claiming Slade sent him a text that read, “Gretchen and Katie stayed aligned and poked holes in her timeline. She walked out.”

Gretchen claimed on the reunion that Katie and Matt “manipulated” the text messages and she and Slade never tried to get them to hide anything.

In the wake of Katie’s feuds with Gretchen and Slade, she also found herself at odds with Jennifer, who told Us on Saturday that the cast did see Katie at BravoCon — but she wasn’t sure they’d ever be friends again.

“There’s been no connection. We haven’t spoken,” Jennifer explained, noting after Katie failed her RHOC lie detector test this season she started to distance herself from the Housewife.

When asked if she could see Katie returning to their group, Jennifer said, “If she genuinely was trying to form friendships, sure [there’s room for her], but not the behind-the-scenes, talking to bloggers and all that. I don’t feel like it bodes well for any of us.”