"It was dark:" The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Mary Cosby opens up on her mother's last days

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Mary Cosby opened up about her mother, Rosalind Cazares's, last days before her death in January 2025, and her strained relationship with her in an exclusive interview with People.

She also claimed that her mother died alone in Maryland, as her brain went too long without oxygen before reaching the hospital, hinting that there was nobody with her at her last moment.

Talking about their complicated relationship, the 53-year-old further told that her mother used to write bad stuff in the local newspaper after she got featured in The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City season 1 in 2020, expressing how she felt:

It was dark. It was a dark space.

Here's what The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Mary Cosby said about her mother

Mary Cosby opened up about one of the most painful and complicated relationships in her life, the one she shared with her late mother, Rosalind Cazares.

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star reflected on the emotional turmoil that defined their bond and the heavy impact of Cazares’ death in January 2025 in an exclusive interview with People.

Mary had been filming season 6 of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City when her mother passed away, a moment she revisited on one of the episodes of the series streamed on October 7, 2025.

She recalled the intense emotional surge that hit her as cameras were rolling, explaining:

She had just died during that time, so I felt everything came back. I feel like it was a load off of me. I was able to breathe and just sigh and be like, ‘Okay, that part's over.’

Mary described years of feeling at odds with her mother, whom she says created a storm of conflict around her, saying that:

She was fighting me, going against me, trying to control me, trying to judge me.

She further shared that living through that stress shaped her approach to motherhood with her own kids, as she added,

That's why I think it made me a better mom, because it showed me, ‘Don't be like that to my child.’ If my child tells me that he believes in something, believe him. If he's wrong, tell him he's wrong. I just feel like my mom didn't do that. It was her word or the highway. I don't ever want to be that kind of person.

Mary said that ever since The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City first premiered in 2020, her mother publicly criticized her.

“Since the first season of RHOSLC aired in 2020, [she] would write an article about her ‘in the local paper’ every week,” Mary recalls. “She was just talking down and saying bad stuff and lying. It was dark. It was a dark space.”

However, the tensions started earlier than that. Mary said that things shifted dramatically after the death of her grandmother, Rosemary, in 1997, explaining that immediately, once her grandmother passed, 

She started wearing her clothes, she started wearing her hats and wearing her jewelry, and she just wanted all of her stuff. I was like, ‘No, we're going to leave things where they are. We're not going to touch anything.’ She thought that she was supposed to pick up and take over control and, no, she wasn't.

A year later, Mary married Robert Sr., her step-grandfather, and took leadership of her grandmother’s church. She and Robert Sr. later welcomed their son, Robert Jr., but the tensions with her mother only worsened over the years.

Mary told People that she was shaken when she learned her mother had died alone.

“When she got to the hospital, they said she went too long without oxygen to her brain,” Mary says. “So that means that she was alone for a long time. I just feel like how you live is how you leave. A very rough way to leave this earth.”

Yet she still hopes her mother found peace in the moments that mattered most, adding,

“I just hope that she did everything that she was supposed to do with the Man upstairs so that she doesn't have to be in the darker side of life for eternity,” she says. “I don't want that for anyone.”

Mary, who often speaks about spirituality and the energy people project into the world, holds firmly to her belief that good intentions matter, as she finally put it:

“You put out good, good comes back to you,” she says. “I try to live by that, and it gets you through anything. I'm always trying to put out good into the universe.”

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City streams weekly on every Tuesday at 8:00 pm ET on Bravo.

Stay tuned for more updates.