Following Wednesday night’s emotional episode, Heather Gay and Meredith Marks sat down with Bravo exec, Andy Cohen, during a special broadcast of WWHL in Miami, where they discussed Robert Jr.’s struggles and the candid, raw moment.
Mary Cosby is opening up about a very personal challenge in her family.
During Wednesday’s episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Mary sat down with her son Robert Jr. to confront him about his recent behavior. While in previous episodes, Mary noticed concerning changes in her son’s behavior, she didn’t exactly know what until he confessed to abusing a variety of substances.
“Robert was like, the perfect child,” she said in her confessional. “He was very good in school. He got straight A’s all the way up until he graduated. When he set his mind to do something, he did it. He was like our prize, very smart, very advanced. That’s the Robert I know, and that’s the Robert I’m trying to reach.”
As she entered Robert Jr.’s room, Mary told him he had to be honest with her about what was going on, saying, “You’ve gotta be real. You’ve gotta talk to me.”
Mary’s son is sharing his story on #RHOSLC. pic.twitter.com/aM8dgX16Bc
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It was then that the 21-year-old admitted that he had taken a Xanax after being awake all night.
“So were you just gonna sleep through the day? Just sleep your whole day away?” Mary questioned.
“No, I just took half to just chill me out, and then I took an Adderall to balance out the Xanax,” Robert Jr. explained.
Taken aback, Mary’s eyes filled with tears as she asked her son if he thought he had a problem.
“Are you unhappy?” she asked.
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“Sometimes, I feel like, I don’t know, just life is like this chicken without seasoning,” he explained. “But when I get high, it’s like seasoning.”
Robert Jr. then went to detail his journey with substances, which started with taking Xanax — a prescription medication for anxiety — when he was 16, after a friend gave it to him at a party.
From then, he started experimenting with other drugs.
“Then I was like, ‘I like this,'” he continued. “I started buying it. Then I started doing Xanax with acid, and then Molly with Xanax, because I really like Xanax, so I mixed it with everything, Xanax and cocaine.”
Robert Jr. even dabbled with the highly-addictive opioid painkiller, Oxyconton, tell his mom that he felt the “turning point” for him came after he couldn’t feel the effects of the drug, despite taking a large number of pills.
“You know, the regular 30-milligram Oxys?” he asked his mom. “I noticed, like, this is a turning point for me. I was taking 10 at once, and I couldn’t even feel it. I couldn’t feel it at all.”
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As she began to cry, Mary assured Robert Jr. that she wouldn’t “judge” him for opening up to her.
“I can help you,” she pleaded. “I can try to help you, but you have to help yourself, because I’m not gonna support it. I’m not. You know I’m not. Do you accept it’s a problem, that you’re having a problem?”
While Robert Jr. sat silent, May began to sob.
“I just feel very disappointed with myself,” she told the cameras. “I feel like I let him down somewhere. I’m very aware, and I do know that Robert did smoke weed. I do know he would eat edibles, but yet I just trusted him in my mind, thinking that’s where he would stop. And I was clearly wrong. I mean, clearly wrong. I missed the mark.”
Mary went on to tell her son, “You’re blessed. You wake up every morning, every day is a new day, a blessed day to waste, to get high.”
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“You will die,” she added.
Robert Jr. then made a heart-wrenching admission: “I wanted to die at the time.”
“You know how that would kill me?” Mary responded.
“I felt like a stain — I just felt like this world wasn’t for me,” he shared in the emotion-packed scene. “You’re the only reason I didn’t kill myself.”
“You have to know I love you more than anything,” Mary, who shares Robert Jr. with husband, Robert Cosby Sr., said as she wept. “More than anything in this world. I think I love you more than dad, like, don’t ever tell dad I said that, but you’re my friend, you’re my son, you’re my gift. God gave you to me. You’re the only thing that ever made me happy. Before I had you, I was never happy. You came and you were so real. It was everything I hoped for in a person.”
Wiping away tears of his own, Robert Jr. told his mom, “I just barely started being happy again.”
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“Please recognize it, own it and change it. Because you can,” Mary advised, before reaching out to her son and pulling him in for a hug.
“I love you,” he whispered to her.
Following Wednesday night’s episode, Bravo exec, Andy Cohen, sat down with some of the Housewives, old and new, for a special episode of Watch What Happens Live from Bravo’s Fan Fest in Miami, Florida, where he addressed the real and raw moment between Mary and her son with fellow RHOSLC stars, Heather Gay and Meredith Marks.
“It was completely compelling television, and it kind of brought me back to why we watch reality TV in the first place,” Heather said. “For people to tell their stories and for their stories to have impact.”
For Meredith, watching the sitdown between Mary and her son helped explain some of Mary’s behavior during RHOSLC’s fifth season, including a moment in a previous episode which saw Mary ask Meredith to leave during a heated Breakfast at Tiffany’s-themed brunch at her home.
“I did not know in real-time,” Meredith said of Robert Jr.’s issues. “I had no idea. It makes me very sad I didn’t know in real-time because I went through a very similar circumstance a couple of years back with my nephew and I feel like I could’ve been a big support to Mary.”
She added, “It was very sad to me that I was unable to be there for her. I did note that she seemed different, that something seemed slightly off.”
Andy, meanwhile, told viewers and the audience that he spoke to Mary before Wednesday’s episode aired, and she told him that “Robert Jr. is doing well.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, get help. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline (1-800-662-4357) provides 24/7, free, confidential support for people in distress.
If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or has had thoughts of harming themselves or taking their own life, get help. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) provides 24/7, free, confidential support for people in distress.
