‘RHOSLC’ Star Mary Cosby Is ‘A Hypocrite,’ Sister Says: ‘Always Been a Fraud’

There’s a dark side to Mary Cosby, say people who knew the Real Housewife before she became a Bravo star. 

The upcoming TLC docuseries The Cult of the Real Housewife is a deep dive into Cosby and her controversial church, Faith Temple Pentecostal Church. The church – which Cosby leads alongside her husband (and former step-grandfather) Robert Cosby Sr. – is less a place a worship and more a money-making vehicle for the Cosbys, critics say in the explosive three-part doc. And Cosby herself has shown a stunning callousness towards other people that is at odds with her role as a pastor, they claim. 

Mary Cosby is a ‘fraud,’ her sister says 

One of those calling out The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star is her own sister, Denise Jefferson Odinaka. Cosby’s elder sibling says that even though her sister claims to be motivated by faith, she’s really all about herself. 

“I didn’t know that my sister was capable of doing what’s she’s doing,” Odinaka says in the first part of the docuseries, which premieres January 1. “She’s on this show telling them about God. She’s like, ‘We’ll let God be the judge.’ … She’s a big hypocrite. And the world is eating it up.”

“She’s always been a fraud, as far as I’m concerned,” Odinaka adds. 

Even as a child, Cosby was “needy,” Odinaka claims. 

Michael Enoch, a former Faith Temple member who was once Cosby’s childhood boyfriend, says that she was “a bully” growing up.

“I remember Mary picking on some of the girls, controlling them … she wasn’t a nice person,” he recalls.  

Cosby didn’t give up her mean girl ways as an adult. Enoch later shares how her nonchalant comments about his daughter’s tragic 2021 death in a car accident deeply affected him. In a clip from an RHOSLC episode, she mentions that the daughter of one of her congregants has died, then quips that she should have been wearing a seatbelt. 

“You have to be one miserable human being to go that low,” he says. “I saw it … that’s a pastor? No sir. Not at all. Why are you speaking on my daughter anyway? You didn’t send condolences.” 

‘RHOSLC’ star’s marriage is ‘not normal’

An apparent lack of empathy isn’t Cosby’s only issue. She’s also been willing to cross some big lines in order to get what she wanted, her sister says. That included marrying Robert, her late grandmother’s husband who was more than 20 years her senior. 

“I now understand that Mary even being able to marry our gramps was not normal. I feel like the reason it happened is because of who she is,” Odinaka says. 

Cosby – who is not interviewed in The Cult of the Real Housewife – has previously said that she had to marry Robert in order to receive her inheritance from her grandmother. That inheritance included Faith Temple and its associated businesses. Leading the congregation has since made Cosby one of the wealthiest Housewives on Bravo. But she insists that she’s never taken money from the church or pressured member to tithe more than they can afford.  

“That’s so cruel,” she told ET in 2021 of the idea that she was siphoning cash from Faith Temple. “I feel like it’s so judgmental, because I am African American and a woman and I do have an eye for finer things in life.”

“I’m so not in it for the money,” she added. “Oh my goodness, I believe in what I do, I believe in what I’m saying, and I love my church and I love what they are. … Money can’t fulfill that, not for me.”

The Cult of the Real Housewife airs January 1 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on TLC. It streams the next day on HBO Max and discovery+.

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