'Popular' Katie Ginella Being 'Let Go' From Bravo Would Be a 'Nightmare,' Source Claims: 'People Have Done So Much Worse'

Katie Ginella might be getting the villain edit on this season of The Real Housewives of Orange County, but it doesn't mean the network is done with her just yet.

“If Bravo decides to let Katie go, there’s going to be a multi-level PR nightmare that will break out,” an insider exclusively told OK!. “First, her fans are very vocal online, and the positive comments far outweigh the negative comments.”

The insider cited Jennifer Pedranti’s “meltdown over the weekend,” in which she lashed out at fans coming for her over her treatment of Ginella.

She advised those fans to unfollow her and go follow Ginella instead.

“Katie is popular and Bravo — who does monitor social media closely — has to know it,” the insider declared.

“Second,” they continued, “Katie is Asian. Bravo has had a sordid history with minorities and the way they’ve been treated on their network at times. This isn’t something Katie’s pointed out or relied on to be clear, but it’s a simple fact and one many of her fans have pointed out.”

The source also insisted the way Ginella was “ousted” from the group by the other RHOC women was “very much like bullying.” “Think about things that have been done on Housewives,” they stated. “People have done SO MUCH WORSE and been allowed to stay, hang, etc. Even Kelly Dodd taped Shannon Beador — and Shannon didn’t freak out on her like this… meanwhile, for whatever reason, they decided to systematically bully Katie and victimize her into not filming the last third or so of the season.”

Ginella has angered her cast and stirred the pot quite a bit. She taped Beador and played it for Alexis Bellino, who is engaged to Beador's ex John Janssen, allegedly told lies to multiple members of the cast, failed a lie detector test and talked to bloggers.

“For all of these reasons, if she’s let go, it would not be a good look for the network whatsoever,” they concluded. “At this time, no decisions have been made, so we’ll just have to watch what happens.”

As OK!’s previous report stated, an insider dished there are two ways Bravo could go about casting for Season 20 of RHOC.

One would be to keep Ginella, who is friends with Tamra Judge, and another would be to let her go.

The source insisted an issue with Ginella leaving would be the women would “have to start turning on each other again… and, as it stands, they made a storyline out of turning on Katie so that wouldn’t really make much sense that they suddenly turned on each other.”

Bravo does not comment on casting for future seasons of The Real Housewives.