Truth about Real Housewives’ star’s shock exit revealed

She’s invited the other Housewives down for a weekend away – all except Anjali, of course, after she mysteriously crashed out of the season last episode (more on that later).

Gamble arrives with that most feared of all party favours: her acoustic guitar.

Janet assigns the rooms based on how much she likes everybody: Jackie gets her own wing of the house, while Kyla and Cherry are bunking together in a kid’s room. Had Anjali been there I assume Janet would’ve put down some newspaper in the laundry for her.

Then they all get into matching pink PJs for some reason and settle down for the reason they’re all there: To watch the rough cut of Janet’s new tea ad.

Gamble – who it emerges went to NIDA, or at least told the ad’s director she did – gives the most honest review: “I liked it because I was in it.”

The ad goes for approximately 12 seconds, which gives them ample time to focus on the weekend’s other key activity, binge drinking.

Janet’s hired a bartender to mix them some cocktails, so naturally Kyla immediately takes over and starts barking orders at him – then uses him as a hapless subject while she instructs Simone on how best to flirt with a man.

Here’s Kyla’s flirting 101: Perch on a chair in the middle of ‘Da Club’, lick your lips and pose seductively. I’m unsure if she’s flirting or she’s about to launch into Mein Herr.

Upsettingly, after watching the first round of cocktails go down the hatch, we then jump-cut to the next morning’s trail of hangovers and destruction – boo, Real Housewives! Give us the good stuff!

Simone’s first out of bed the next morning, picking camembert out of the carpet and pouring half-empty drinks down the sink while trying not to gag. This is exactly when your one annoyingly Type-A overachiever friend is most useful.

Tiptoeing in to wake Gamble, Simone does her best not to scream at what’s hiding underneath the covers:

Kyla’s nursing a “12 out of 10” hangover, so she’s also hiding behind a facemask and sunnies as she shuffles into the kitchen. For a self-proclaimed Champagne Dame, she doesn’t seem to be able to hold her booze too well.

“How come you’re not hungover?” she moans to the Lucille Bluth of the group, Janet, who feels absolutely fine after a night’s heavy drinking. For Janet, anyp arty’s a success when she doesn’t down so much tequila she requires hospitalisation.

Everyone’s rough as guts and I am living for it. FINALLY we get a brief flashback of what exactly happened the night before – and it basically looked like the tail end of my Year 10 Formal:

Hopefully Foxtel cancelled Anjali’s subscription after she bailed on the season, because back in Melbourne, all the girls can talk about is how fun the weekend away was and how close knit and drama-free this new, streamlined, Anjali-free Real Housewives cast is. Stop, she’s already dead!

Meeting up for a drink and a debrief with Gamble, Janet says she much prefers the new girls without Anjali around – and she also much prefers Kyla trashed.

But continuing her tireless Detective work this season, she feels that “something’s amiss”. She’s puzzled as to why Anjali pointed to her as one of her key reasons for leaving the show, when she “barely said two words to her.”

And in another catch-up across town, Kyla’s filling Simone in on the reason – that Janet apparently “broke into” Anjali’s apartment during her pool party to try and find evidence that she didn’t really live there.

Kyla says Anjali later checked the building’s security camera footage and found no evidence Janet had actually broken in – but she still wants “talk to the police about it.” (”Hello, triple-0? This is an emergency: A Real Housewife says she rifled through my cupboards but she actually hasn’t. Yes, I’ll hold.”)

Simone politely and noncommittally listens to this bizarre story:

Simone’s advice is clear: It’s not your fight, Kyla. Don’t bring it up with Janet. Leave it be.

You just know Kyla’s going to ignore that advice like it’s a standard drinks recommendation.

Finally this week, we’re at the EP launch for Australia’s own Adele, Gamble Breaux. The dress code seems to be “try your best to upstage me”:

Gamble takes to the stage to warble her new single Barrenjoey Road, a moving, profound ballad about … visiting Sydney’s Palm Beach. Get that Tourism NSW sponsorship, Gamble!

Everyone in the audience watches politely – well, almost everyone:

After the performance, Simone sits down with Janet and relays the convo she had with Kyla about this whole alleged break-in. It’s the first time we’ve seen Janet confronted with the allegation, and she’s stunned – but she does have an explanation.

When the Housewives went to Anjali’s pool party, they all met for a drink first in another communal room in the apartment building, which Janet mistakenly thought was Anjali’s actual apartment. Looking around the bare space, she said she didn’t think Anjali really lived there – and, yes, opened an empty cupboard to prove her point.

Somewhere along the way (cough – Kyla – cough), that fairly innocent story got turned into cat burglar Janet breaking into Anjali’s apartment and rifling through her cupboards looking for evidence.

Janet’s fuming at “dirty rat” Kyla, labelling her a “gaslighter”. It’s the perfect time to head back into the party and sit down with the rest of the group.

The truth comes out pretty quickly, and as a serial exaggerator of stories, I actually feel for Kyla – if Janet had told me she mistook a communal space in Anjali’s apartment building for her apartment and looked in a cupboard, I too probably would’ve jazzied that up into “Serial burglar Janet Roach’s violent break-and-enter” by the time I relayed the story to someone else.

The argument devolves from there as they fight what Janet snooped into and what her intentions were – leading to this impossibly camp clarification from Janet: “It wasn’t a cupboard, it was a CREDENZA.”

Janet really lays into Kyla, and you can see why she’s so angry: Kyla exaggerated a story about Janet to the extent that Anjali fled the entire show mid-season. Kyla protests that she doesn’t have to sit and listen to this.

“Don’t listen then – f**k off,” says Janet – and she does.

“F**k you all,” Kyla spits back at the group as she storms out, which seems weirdly generalised when she was only fighting with Janet.

It’s an implausibly long walkout as the cameras follow her through the venue – she’s screaming back at “these molls” to “get ya f**king act together” as Jackie chases after her.

Kyla says she’s done with all of them – is she about to join Anjali on Real Housewives of Melbourne: Exile Island?

The Real Housewives of Melbourne airs 8:30pm Sundays on Foxtel’s Arena channel. In the meantime chat all things #RHOM with recapper, gaslighter and dirty rat Nick Bond on Twitter.

Originally published as Real Housewives of Melbourne episode 8 recap: Janet learns why Anjali really quit the show