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When I first heard about Sonic’s Break Up With Your Burger campaign, I was intrigued. When I heard that The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’s Bronwyn Newport was the face of it, I was even more curious. And after speaking with the reality star about the cheeky new campaign, I have to say: breaking up with something might just be the new life reset.
“I do love the burger, in all honesty,” Bronwyn admitted during a Zoom call — fittingly, from a Sonic in my own neighborhood. “And I just think this is really fun and so cute.”
My favorite RHOSLC housewife (yes, in the name of journalism, I have to be honest about my bias here) said she was immediately drawn to the tagline. As fans of the show already know — and as she happily confirmed — she “loves a pun” and “loves a theme.”
But what she loves most right now is the ability to find joy in hard moments.
“I think sometimes when things are heavy, we only feel the negative or the things that are hard about it,” she said. “And yeah, I'm going through a breakup, and it's very difficult, but there is so much joy, and there’s so much fun.”
She paused before adding another example of the campaign’s playful spirit.
“I love Sonic. And for them to be like, ‘We love you too, and we want to make this funny and silly and talk about a burger’ — how can you be sad when someone’s making a pun about it?” she said with a laugh. “There’s a trash can in here that says, ‘Your ex is trash.’”
“It’s hilarious in here,” she continued. “It just feels so supportive and lovely. And who doesn’t want a burger in the middle of a breakup?”
Speaking of that breakup, Bronwyn confirmed that she and her estranged husband, Todd Bradley, have now “fully decided to divorce.” Fans watched the couple’s relationship struggles unfold over the past few seasons of RHOSLC, with Bronwyn announcing the split during the RHOSLC Season 6 reunion, which aired in January.
Now, she says, they’re navigating what comes next.
“I’m just so grateful for the opportunity to have ever had Todd in my life. I'm so excited for all of the confidence and love and support that he's given me,” she said. “I'm choosing to take all those special happy memories and all the good things and kind of go from here.”
And for Bronwyn, that “from here” is about embracing the unknown.
“When everything changes, you have this opportunity to really try something different,” she explained. “I loved my time with Todd. It was hard towards the end. But now that it’s so public and everyone’s so aware of our problems and our breakup, I kind of get to do anything.”
“I love the idea that you can always choose to start over, try again, go a different way,” she continued. “It’s never too late. You're never too inexperienced. We should be spending the lives that we have the way that we want to have them.”
“It is scary. It is sad. There’s lots of grief in an ending and closure,” she noted. “But there’s also optimism and excitement for maybe what that means for me next. I’m just trying to focus on that.”
If her life is entering a reset, it’s already coming with a few unexpected perks. Just last month, Bronwyn was spotted with Rihanna in New York City during New York Fashion Week.
“It was not like a planned hangout at all,” she said with a laugh after I asked how it happened and what it’s like living a “totally different life” than some of her fellow Housewives — shoutout to Lisa Barlow.
“I stay at a hotel in New York very often that I know she and I have overlapped at before. It's very obvious when she's there. There's a lot of security and fans.”
Bronwyn explained that the two had interacted before — just not face-to-face.
“She’s been so sweet to me in the past, messaging me on Instagram about the show and being very supportive,” she said.
That night, she had a feeling Rihanna was in the building, so she did what many of us might do in that moment: she sent a message.
“I was coming down the elevator to go out, and I messaged her on Instagram and said, ‘Girl, I'm trying to get through the elevator, and your security is everywhere. Can a woman not get through the hotel lobby anymore?’”
And then something straight out of a reality show happened.
“As I walked out of the elevator, she came out of the elevator next to me,” Bronwyn said. “I said, ‘You will not believe this, I just DM’d you.’ She said, ‘Let me see.’”
The two shared a quick hug and chatted privately for a moment before stepping outside, where cameras were waiting, and the internet soon got its now-famous shot of Bronwyn with RiRi.
In many ways, that moment felt symbolic of the chapter Bronwyn now finds herself in: stepping into a new version of her life — publicly, and on her own terms.