IT was my own stupid fault, really.

Setting up my sit-down chat with the Real Housewives of Melbourne, I was offered plenty of chances to make things easy on myself. The helpful Foxtel publicists repeatedly suggested separating the ladies into two or three groups for more intimate (read: easier to wrangle) interviews.

Pfft. Go hard or go home, I thought. I came to party: give me full on, balls-to-the-wall Housewives.

Ushered into a studio at Foxtel’s North Sydney HQ, the eight ladies sit resplendent in front of me in full Housewives uniform of beauty queen ball gown, drag queen make-up and enough hairspray to turn the building into a fire hazard.

Their publicist whispers one final warning into my ear before I sit down:

“Don’t be afraid to tell them all to shut up.”

I set my tape recorder down, ask my first question, and for the next 30 minutes it’s absolute chaos. I’ve transcribed what ensues as best I can, but be aware that, at any one time, there are up to four individual conversations happening among the eight women sitting in front of me.

At one stage, I resort to clapping my hands loudly and stamping my feet in an attempt to gain their attention and get the interview back on track.

Chyka — blessed, sensible Chyka — tries to lend a hand, corralling the other women when the conversation veers too wildly away from the topic at hand. Gina, sat closest to me, throws in quiet jibes and ‘See what I have to deal with?’ looks.

Overwhelmingly, I’m left with a new-found respect for Real Housewives reunion show host Alex Perry. Hun earns his paycheck.

Hi ladies! Well, you all look great.

Gina: [grabbing breasts] Well MY girls look great today.

Jackie: Gina and I have really got them out today.

Susie, you’re the new girl, so let’s start with you. In the first episode of season three, you host a ‘baking day’ for the other housewives that soon descends into a champagne-fuelled slanging match. Was that a shock?

Susie: I envisaged bluebirds floating around and woodland creatures bringing me the baking ingredients ... and then the girls arrived.

Gina: We just weren’t the type of animals you were expecting.

Susie: No. It all went from there. ‘Sugardaddy.com’ [Pettifleur alleges that Gamble met husband Rick on a site devoted to gold diggers and sugar daddys], that was my absolute favourite.

How is everyone feeling at the moment? Are any of you mid-feud?

Gamble: When we do publicity tours, we have to put all that in a box, we do. A few of the girls are quite upset with themselves, but-

Jackie: ‘Themselves’? Has she had a wine?

Gamble: I had one with breakfast, yes. But we put it in a box and we save it for the reunion ... and we collect some other things to stick in the box too.

Chyka: That day [in the first episode] we’d all caught up with each other for the first time, and it. Just. HAPPENED. I was in the kitchen and all I could hear was this noise from the other room, and I knew it had started.

Susie: I just knew I had to hide my sharps.

Pettifleur and Gamble, what is your relationship like at the moment?

Pettifleur: We fight all the time ...

Gamble: But at the end of the day we have compassion for each other, and respect. I think that’s where the difference lies. And you’re a lot nicer to me now.

Pettifleur: I’ve always been nice to you; you’ve just found out now.

Gamble: And she started those rumours about Sugardaddy.com, which were totally untrue — I met [husband Rick] on eHarmony. I do encourage people to use eHarmony — not sugardaddy.com.

Jackie: I met Ben [Gillies, her husband] on Tinder! Wait, no I didn’t.

Pettifleur: Can I answer that question really clearly here? That was never supposed to be for Gamble to hear. That was a conversation that-

Gina: You said it in front of her!

Pettifleur: That’s after! Are you watching the same show? The conversation between Lydia and I happened before, so get it right.

Gina: I’ve GOT it right.

My favourite Housewives trope is when one of you says ‘That was a private conversation’ or ‘You weren’t meant to hear that’ about something you have said ON CAMERA.

Janet: That’s like when I said Gamble was a stripper and I said ‘But I only said it to you ...’ She was like, ‘You bloody told the whole of Australia!’

Pettifleur: OK, I can’t get out of that one, can I.

It’s such a reality show cliche that you ‘forget the cameras are watching’ — is that really true?

Gina: I think you just stop caring. So much gets edited out that you just go with the flow. We’re there to entertain, we all know that.

Jackie: But don’t be in the show if you don’t want to be truthful, I say.

Janet: Well, Jackie, it’s not in our contract to be truthful, actually. We don’t have to be.

Jackie: Well you know what I’m going to do in season four? I’m going to f*cking lie my arse off and see where it goes.

Janet: Lie. My. Arse. Off.

Pettifleur: Are you recording any of this?

Yes I am, I told you at the start.

Jackie: Nick, you’ve got to just take control darling.

The first season was a real trial by fire for a lot of you — for former Houswife Andrea, it’s safe to say the public backlash was too much. Was it hard for the rest of you too?

Lydia: Oh it was for me. I was the biggest c**t, apparently. I think season one we all learned quite a bit. We were not prepared for social media at all.

Chyka: We thought we knew, but we didn’t.

Lydia: We’ve discovered two good buttons: delete and block.

Did you ever have a moment of horror watching a particular scene back?

Janet: Oh, plenty of times.

Gina: A certain trip to the bathroom ... [Gina stormed off to a bathroom and called Lydia a ‘c**t’ in season one — with her microphone still on].

That really made the Real Housewives of Melbourne stand out early on — you don’t get a lot of c-bombs on the overseas iterations of the show.

Chyka: They’ve used it a bit in the new season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, though.

Janet: They copied us! They copied us! They saw, ‘Ooh, that got good ratings, let’s copy that’.

Gamble: I don’t say the word because the girls get angry.

Jackie: What do you mean you don’t say it! You tell me that I need to stop swearing, and you’ve got a potty mouth too, so there you go.

The girls now start arguing with each other about who swears the most for more than two minutes. On the end of the couch, Gina speaks to me one-on-one about when it’s appropriate to call someone a c**t. Here’s what else my tape recorder picks up:

Jackie: It’s like a bloody madhouse in here.

Susie [To Pettifleur]: Have you had your teeth done?

Pettifleur: I have a crooked tooth, haven’t you noticed that?

Well, there’s my scoop. Pettifleur, on the topic of swearing, let’s talk about your self-help manual Switch The Bitch. There’s talk in Sunday’s episode of legal letters — what’s its status now?

Pettifleur:Switch The Bitch is doing fabulously. I got a fake legal letter, but they didn’t put in the show that it’s a FAKE letter. It was sent by a person that didn’t exist, it was someone trying to get some media attention. I had to get a lawyer and get them to chase the letter up, and it came to nothing. When I explained this on the show, it didn’t come out — it still looks like I’m a douchebag who got sued. It was just some idiot. There was a lot of social media hate, however the book is selling AMAZING now — people are reading it, they’re sharing it, they’re talking about it-

Gamble: You told me it was just going in dribs and drabs, like, an hour ago.

Jackie: Gamble she did not! You are such a bullshit artist! She did not say ‘dribs and drabs’!

Pettifleur: Have another drink. It didn’t, honey. It was going in dribs and drabs at the START. Now it’s selling really well all around the world. But that was never my intent, to make money.

Gina [Cracking up]: ‘It’s selling really well’ ... ‘dribs and drabs’!

Dribs. And. Drabs.

Jackie: Stop it, you’re making me laugh. Dribs and draaaaabs!

Chyka: Next question! Next question!

Janet: We’re getting delirious, I’m sorry.

Gina: Pettifleur, you sound like a really bitter and twisted old lady.

Pettifleur: You think you can all sit there and laugh at me, I’m not going to take it, I’m going to fight back.

Gina: I need a bag of popcorn, I’m going to sit and watch now.

Jacckie: Dribs and drabs ... ahhh, that was the best f**king call of the day.

Let’s talk Warnie. Is there a cast member who he has NOT hit on?

Chyka: ME! He has not hit on me. It’s shattering.

Gina: He doesn’t know, but we’ve all slept with him.

Chyka: When he gets out of the jungle, he’s going to be so interested in what’s going on.

As a viewer, it seems like the ‘Lydia and Shane’ stuff is all silly gossip — I mean Lydia, you’re married. The real dirt is in the fact Shane sent you a booty call sext, Janet.

Pettifleur: But Janet, isn’t he too old for you?

Janet: That’s what Lydia said! He’s in the jungle in South Africa, and his name has come up in every one of our interviews. His PR is amazing.

Speaking of his PR, did you catch him on I’m A Celeb this week? Just casually telling his fellow contestants he believes all human life is the result of ancient alien experimentation on monkeys?

Lydia: Don’t ...

Janet: Oh my gosh. See, I love the intelligent ones, they really do it for me.

Gina: I had a guy like that at my house last week moving furniture. The missing link between humans, monkeys and aliens.

Gina continues telling me about her ‘missing link’ furniture removalist while — away from my focus, but next to my tape recorder — Janet and Lydia discuss Shane Warne’s now defunct charitable foundation, of which Lydia was an ambassador.

Janet: It’s all on the front page of The Age, that’s exactly what she was saying. You can’t just say amounts off the top of your head, it needs to be substantiated.

Jackie: What are you talking about?

Janet: About Shane Warne and about the foundation. You only say things that can be substantiated.

Lydia: People invested money in this foundation ...

Janet: And they are expecting that what you say has some validity!

Jackie: Hey, can we move on from this topic?

On to another Housewives satellite personality: is Janet’s intimidating friend Manuela going to be on this season at all?

Gamble: No, we’re not having any horses and donkeys on the show.

Janet: We asked her, we said ‘Are you going to come on the show?’ and she said ...

With this, Janet stands up, stamps her heel three times on the ground like a horse, waves a pretend mane, then shoots me a ‘need I say more’ look.

Janet, you’re meant to be her friend!

Janet: Nope, I’m terrified of her. That horse has BOLTED. She’s no longer in the stable.

Gamble: OK, I’ve got a scoop! Manuela’s husband phoned me before the reunion when Manuela came and he told me he had lots of dirt on Manuela. I said no, I wanted some dirt on Janet, because we were fighting. He said, ‘Oh, Janet’s always been a nice girl’ — then told me all these mean things that Manuela had done to Janet. It’s the sisterhood of housewives — I was then mad about the thirty years Janet had wasted with this horrible woman.

And how are you, Janet? Are you on Team Gamble now?

Janet: Absolutely.

So Manuela is no longer your friend?

Janet: Who? *Again clomps heel three times on ground like a horse* I just don’t like her, so I went out with her boyfriend to get her back. Nobody is missing Manuela on this show, just sayin’. You know when I said, ‘I’m only friends with her because I’m too scared to be enemies with her?’ She CRACKED it when I said that, but it’s true.

Pettifleur: She looked down her nose at me, I kid you not, the first time she met me.

Janet: Oh she would’ve been really upset, because you and Gamble — she wanted to be one of you. She thought she had it in the bag.

Susie, given all this madness, did you have any trepidation about joining the show?

Gina: We’ve taken her under our wing, we look after her.

Susie: We go through all the same issues that any group of girlfriends would go through, it’s just that now it’s up for public scrutiny and entertainment. Chyka and I have another group of girlfriends, and there’s always a drama. Always.

Chyka: Not as vocal as this.

Gina: We’re quite anti-social in the way we treat each other, when you think about it. You couldn’t actually function like that in the real world — you’d just have the door slammed in your face. Gamble, think about you and Pettifleur — as if you’d really invite her to your wedding after she screamed at you like she has.

Pettiffleur: Why are you picking on me for?

Gina: BECAUSE YOU’RE A PAIN IN THE ARSE!

Everybody laughs, really loudly.

Ladies, thanks for your time.

Janet: How are your ears after all that?

The Real Housewives of Melbourne — Season 3 kicks off 8:30pm this Sunday on Foxtel’s Arena Channel — and we’ll be recapping the whole series, so check news.com.au right after each episode for recapper Nick Bond’s verdict.

Want to brush up on your Real Housewives before the new season starts? Revisit our season two recaps:

Reunion Part 2: Gamble’s jaw-dropping insult

Reunion Part 1: Pettifleur’s shock walkout

Episode 11: ‘It’s been a nightmare’

Episode ten: Gina and Gamble slam Pettifleur’s book

Episode nine: Gamble’s sex party rumours resurface

Episode eight: Gina and Jackie’s incredible bogan slanging match

Episode seven: Thriller in Manila

Episode six: Gamble and Janet’s drunken scuffle

Episode five: Gamble gets messy at dinner

Episode four: Gina breaks Janet

Episode three: ‘I heard you f**k for heroin’

Episode two: ‘It’s a real mongrel of a woman’

Episode 1: New housewives shake things up