From a Housewives outsider to the center snowflake

Growing up in Salt Lake City, Angie Katsanevas didn’t exactly fit in. In a city full of blond, blue-eyed, all-American Mormons, Katsanevas was the daughter of immigrants from Crete. She was Greek Orthodox, with black hair and skin that tanned easily in the sun. She ate spanakopita instead of the pizza and hot dogs of her classmates, and she wasn’t allowed to have soda. She wore her cousins’ hand-me-downs, and her father, a single dad of seven, made sure she kept her hair short.

“My hobbies were babysitting cousins and younger siblings and being Greek,” Katsanevas said in a recent interview. “I grew up in an all-Mormon neighborhood. My entire grade, my entire school, everyone was Mormon. They went to the same ward, which meant you lived in the same neighborhood where you went to church. They all went on missions together. They were all raised the same, and I was the only non-Mormon for miles. So I felt very different. I felt isolated.”

But Katsanevas, 52, is a Salt Lake City outsider no longer. She owns a popular hair salon chain, Lunatic Fringe, and is a star of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” a fan-favorite Bravo series that follows the lives, friendships and outrageous behavior of an affluent group of women in Utah.

Since joining the show as a guest in Season 2, she has been steadily promoted. Now, as the series wraps up its sixth season, not only is she a full-time cast member, but she’s the “center snowflake,” a term for the Housewife who is posed in the middle of the group for promotional content. As her fans have eagerly pointed out online, she is the only Housewife in Bravo history to achieve such an ascent.

“When I was originally referred to the show by Heather Gay, they did not tell me it was ‘Housewives,’” Katsanevas said of her fellow cast member. “They said it’s a show about fabulous businesswomen. So of course, I presented myself in a very businesswoman light. I was very professional. I was a little more serious. I wasn’t, you know, fun, funny and witty.”

Having established herself on the show, Katsanevas has now had ample opportunity to display her quick wit. For many Bravo fans, a “good” housewife is one who is willing to share the intimate parts of her life while also maintaining a healthy level of delusion and pettiness. And, of course, deploying memorable barbs. Katsanevas has mastered this formula, and, throughout her tenure on the show, she has delivered some of its most memorable lines.

In addition to being a reality TV star, she’s focused on the business world. After starting Lunatic Fringe with her husband, Shawn Trujillo, in 1999, she expanded the business into a successful franchise that operates across three states. And, as a Housewife, she frequently turns her viral one-liners into business opportunities.

After telling a fellow cast member in Season 5 that she had “high body count hair,” she spun the line into a brand partnership with Kerastase. And this season, when another Housewife who has a partnership with Wendy’s criticized Katsanevas’ business acumen, she replied: “You do french fries, I do franchise.” That line led Arby’s to reach out and ask her to star in a commercial.

Katsanevas’ willingness to not take herself too seriously has injected some much-needed levity into a franchise that can occasionally veer dark. On-screen, the women navigate divorces and cheating rumors, family addictions and business failures. Though she isn’t afraid to discuss serious issues — she was 6 when her mother, an alcoholic, died — Katsanevas knows the show exists to entertain and she isn’t afraid to lighten the mood.

And though she’s more than willing to engage in a petty back and forth about who owns more Porsches or who had a Cartier watch first, she can come across as surprisingly down to earth, particularly compared with her castmates. When she appeared on the Bravo spinoff “Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition” last year, she had the challenge of switching lives with a wife whose family lives off the grid, and she took to the new lifestyle with grace.

“I’m no stranger to hard work, and I was also raised that if I wanted something, I had to work for it,” she said. “My time on ‘Wife Swap,’ being off-grid was very similar to the life that my dad lived, and I’ve seen where he’s from: no electricity, no running water, no shower, not a working toilet.”

She added: “So for me, it was almost kind of like an adventure, seeing how someone else lives, and just being grateful for the amenities that I have. It really put me in that place of gratitude.”

As “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” airs its season finale, Katsanevas is working on expanding her new sunglasses line, which she recently tested at BravoCon. She’s also helping her teenage daughter Elektra get back to riding after her horse, Glitter, was injured last June — an injury predicted by a tarot card reader who appeared on the show in a kind of “come on” moment that only a Housewives franchise could generate.

“I was shook,” Katsanevas said of the prophecy. “I had to call the ladies and production. I had to call everyone and say, ‘I can’t believe this happened.’”

As other Housewives jostle for center snowflake position amid rumors of a Season 7 cast shake-up, Katsanevas is proud of how far she’s come.

“I’m self-made in my real life, and I had the same trajectory on the show,” she said. “I think the story is that much more special and I think it’s more relatable to the audience as well because it was organic.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.