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Credit: Gabe Ginsberg/Bravo
Former members of Mary Cosby‘s Faith Temple Pentecostal Church are speaking out against her in a new, three-part documentary from TLC.
In a couple of sneak peeks at The Cult of the Real Housewife, the 53-year-old Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star is being put on blast, not only for the apparent pressures she puts on congregants when it comes to their donations to the church, but also for her comments about the death of a young mother.
“I was there when Mary complained about the 14 birthday cards,” said Ernest Enoch, as seen in a preview shared by PEOPLE on December 15. “I was always there. I’m the organist. I gave this chick a card with $1,000 in it. Ask me if she said thank you.”
As RHOSLC fans may recall, back in 2020, a leaked audio clip featured Mary berating members of the church for presenting her with just 14 cards for her birthday, as well as the amount of money that they gifted her. But at the RHOSLC reunion, she insisted the recording was misconstrued.
“My church couldn’t possibly take care of me,” she stated. “I’m a God-fearing woman and would never do that.”
As Ernest also said he felt “a lot of pressure” to give to the church, his sister, Rosalind Enoch, accused Mary and her husband, Robert Cosby Sr., of creating “heave offerings” for their church attendees.
“They were going to have them every six months,” she said. “It started to increase over time. We could’ve just had a heave offering meeting and then in another week or two we’re having another meeting where we’re being told there’s an emergency and they need $100,000 and they need it by Thursday. The worst announcement you could hear when you walked into that church is, ’Tell everybody don’t leave. We need to have an emergency saints meeting.’ You knew it was going to be about money.”
According to Rosalind, Robert would “instruct ushers to stand at the doors” during the meetings.
“You’re just being barricaded in here,” she said. “During this meeting, everyone put their name and their amount on the list. If you didn’t have a certain amount, Robert would say, ‘That’s all you have?’ I mean, there’s nothing spiritual about that, right?”
Some congregants reportedly offered the church money via credit cards.
“There were times that I would give $5,000,” Rosalind shared. “It was a lot. This money is getting bigger and bigger. There were people cashing out 401(k)s, losing homes. It got to be a financial embarrassment for some.”
It was also unclear where “all this money” was going or how it was going to be used.
In another clip shared by BOSSIP, Michael Enoch, the father of the late 24-year-old Maikel Enoch, who died in a car accident in 2021, slammed Mary for a moment that aired in season two.
While speaking of the incident to Whitney Rose, 39, and her children, Mary seemed quite casual and carefree. And when one of the kids asked if the woman was still alive, she matter-of-factly uttered, “No,” before declaring she was “excited” to be there.
“I was angry. That was an attack on me and my daughter,” Michael said. “You have to be one miserable human being to go that low. ‘Oh well, I guess she should wear her seatbelt.’ I saw it. Now, that’s a Pastor? No, sir, not at all.”
“Why are you speaking on my daughter anyway? You didn’t send condolences,” he continued. “Fortunately, my daughter’s gone. She didn’t have to hear it. It’s unfortunate for my daughter that she loved Mary and Robert. She loved the church. She kept a doll that Mary bought her when my daughter was a little girl. When I went to clean out her place, she still had that doll.”
Meanwhile, Rosalind also looked back on the scene.
“It was a very traumatizing moment to watch. Anyone that can speak and joke about anything like that doesn’t deserve to pastor anything,” she noted.
“These are babies. I watched [Maikel’s daughter] London dance around her casket and not one phone call from Mary. [She] didn’t say nothing,” Ernest added.
At BravoCon last month, Mary said the documentary was “sad and a shame.”
“It’s horrible, that’s what I think,” she stated. “And it’s not true.”
The Cult of the Real Housewife premieres Thursday, January 1, at 8/7c on TLC, with the rest of the episodes streaming the following day on HBO Max and Discovery+.
