IT has been two seasons since fans last saw Tamra Judge on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Orange County.
With season 17 right around the corner, fans want to know if there is a chance that Judge might make a surprise comeback.
Tamra Judge joined RHOC during its third season
Is Tamra Judge returning to RHOC?
In July 2022, drama between Jill Zarin and Tamra Judge started after the RHOC star let it slip that Judge would be returning to the popular Bravo show.
In a since-deleted Instagram Story, Zarin said: “And Tamra’s coming back, and my friend Vicky’s not happy,” according to ET.
Shortly after, Judge seemingly confirmed the news, taking to Twitter to call out Zarin for leaking the information.
Judge wrote: “Go f*** yourself @JillZarin! You thirsty b****!”
Despite the drama between Zarin and Judge, a source told Page Six that “Tamra is thrilled to come back to the show,” and that she “can’t wait to get back in the mix on ‘RHOC’ and see how she can shake up the dynamic.”
Why did Tamra Judge leave RHOC?
For 12 years, Judge had been a regular cast member on RHOC, but she shocked fans in 2020 after she announced she was leaving.
“It’s been a wild 12 years,” Judge wrote on Instagram at the time, via ET.
“But it’s time for me to move on. I’m sad to go but I’m very excited about my future. Love 
you guys 
.”
At the time, a source told the media outlet that she was offered a returning role on the show, but she turned it down to “walk away on her own terms.”
Her departure came just one day after Vicki Gunvalson announced she was leaving the show.
It was later revealed that Simon Barney’s stage 3 throat cancer diagnosis and Eddie Judge’s ongoing heart issues influenced her exit from RHOC.
“I was going to say I wasn’t coming back at the reunion. I had just found out about Simon days before the reunion. I was a mess. I had been crying. I was crying — I don’t want to cry now — I was crying in my dressing room, like, I can’t go out there. And everyone’s like, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I’m like, ‘I can’t do this,'” Judge recalled during an interview on Radio Andy’s Jeff Lewis Live in February 2020, via BravoTV.
“I was going to tell everybody then that it was gonna be too hard for me to go back, you know, with Simon going through treatment and the kids. How are they gonna deal with it? At this time, he had just found out and hadn’t started treatment. I didn’t know what to expect. So [my husband Eddie Judge]’s like, ‘Yeah, just go do it.'”
Tamra Judge will return to RHOC for season 17
She later told PEOPLE: “The reality of it is, after Eddie’s heart condition and now Simon with cancer, it’s just very hard for me to want to go on a show where people are screaming and yelling and arguing about things that don’t even matter.
“They’ve taught me that life is precious, and you don’t get that time back.”
Judge was married to Barney from 1998 to 2011 and later tied the knot with Eddie Judge in 2013.
When does season 17 of RHOC start?
Filming for The Real Housewives of Orange County season 17 began in June 2022, but at this time, it remains unclear when the season will officially air.
It is being reported that it could drop by the end of the year or at the beginning of 2023.
Prior to the start of filming, it was announced that Noella Bergener and Jennifer Armstrong would not be returning.
