AP Photo/Jennifer GraylockBravo is going on with the show, and Russell Armstrong's family can't do anything about it.
But they don't have to keep quiet.
Russell's mother, John Ann Hotchkiss, spoke out tonight about the network's decision not to delay the Sept. 5 season premiere of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which will now include recently taped remarks from the various castmembers regarding the suicide of Taylor Armstrong's husband.
And Hotchkiss mainly wants just one thing.
"When I was informed of this, I thought, 'I hope Bravo will take the high road and keep it tasteful,'" she said in a statement to HLN's Issues With Jane Velez-Mitchell. "Let's not murder my son twice."
If Hotchkiss is referring to character assassination, that's precisely what Bravo has been scrambling to avoid.
Instead of delaying the RHOBH's season premiere, editors immediately commenced re-editing footage that, if a press screener was any indication, shined the usual harsh light on Taylor and Russell's marital problems.
"I began to notice things starting to fray when the television thing came into being, and I was very concerned," Hotchkiss, who described the Armstrongs' marriage as "blissful" at one point, told Velez-Mitchell two days after her son was found dead by his own hand.
"What bothered me the most was...he would be bashed by some of the other castmembers, especially Lisa [Vanderpump], who is a beautiful lady—and I just couldn't understand why she would be so unkind to him...The program itself really brought him down."
Russell told her, "'Mom, they're just going to crucify me this season,'" Hotchkiss said. "And he said, 'I don't know what to do. I'll never survive it.'"
(Originally published Aug 31, 2011, at 8:50 p.m. PT)