Our Story
What is Cheater Cheater Brand?
In short, Cheater Cheater Brand is an apparel and accessories brand that celebrates our love for all things reality TV and pop culture. We design gifts and merch for the super fans by a super fan! Like Jax on scooter cooler, ride the coattails of cheater brands with us into the sunset in Paramus. Our apparel is size inclusive (5x to XS available) and sustainably produced using print-on-demand services.
We are proudly LGBTQIA+ owned and committed to our brand values:
- Size Inclusivity
- LGBTIA+ Representation
- Diversity of models
But... what IS a cheater brand?
Picture it: a loft in Manhattan, circa 2015. It’s the office of Bethany Schmankle and her product line LeanQueen; everything from bottled mixed drinks and deli meat to microwave popcorn and jeans, all stamped with a logo in Comic Sans font (okay, fine, that was just the first version of the logo, but WE WILL NOT FORGET.)
Enter Sonya with-a-sexy-Y Poorgan. Sonya looks up to Bethany as a mentor, friend, and rich person whose townhouse roof does not leak. She’s come to visit Bethany to tell her about the launch of HER new product: TipsyQueen, a prosecco she’s developing along with a few shady partners. Bethany has already heard through the grapevine (production) about Sonya’s new brand. She is not pleased. After needling Sonya to explain the brand history behind TipsyQueen, B. Schmankle drops this:
“They call it a cheater brand. When a brand rides on the coattails of another brand and kind of uses a similar name, they call it a cheater brand.”
Sonya Poorgan is taken aback! She cries. Bethany Cankle collects her tears and has them for lunch. And thus, the term “cheater brand” was born into the Bravoverse, and TipsyQueen, the brand, faded into oblivion - living on only in our memories and on streaming services worldwide. A source (old queen at a bar) tells us a cyst and deceased may have been involved.
Confused? Check out this video:
Better yet, cancel all your plans and just watch Real Housewives of New York from the beginning. YES THE VERY BEGINNING and don't stop until you're good and worked up about the reboot!!
WHO is Cheater Cheater Brand?
It's just me, Lucy! I'm a long-time Bravo watcher and Bravo podcast fan. I'm originally from Texas, and now live in the Midwest in a forest town with my husband and two little dogs. My first foray into housewives was when I saw Tootie from Facts of Life on my screen as an adult being yelled at by a group of glamorous women in bikinis and huge sunglasses. I was hooked! Tootie turned out to be a dud of a Housewife, but in my quest to find people to talk about my newest obsession with, I came across the podcast Watch What Crappens. I don't know if I've ever laughed so hard. Now Ben and Ronnie are a part of my every day routine, and Danny Pellegrino, The Bravo Docket and Kate Casey are weekly listens as well. It's a (Southern) charmed life.
Cheater Cheater Brand worships at the feet of our Patron Saint, Caroline Calloway.
Why? If you don’t know much about her, we recommend a deep dive (visit our Instagram highlight named Caro)… it’s worth it, we promise. This Wikipedia article is another good place to start.
To recap, Caroline is known as a Scammer but is more of a super creative chaotic person with good intentions, great ideas and historically bad follow-through. She thinks of herself as the world's first Instagram influencer and will never get over her time at University of Cambridge (literally, we might never hear the end of it.) It’s her resilience, though, that we really respect. Just when you think she's disappeared, she re-invents herself in fascinating ways. We’re still waiting on our copy of Scammer, purchased in June 2020, to be delivered. When it arrives, friends, you better believe we’re gonna talk about it! You're not going to believe this, but our "luxury first edition" of Scammer finally arrived in December of 2023! Only a 3.5 year wait. Do we dare order the next book in the trilogy??
Join us on social media to follow along!