Taylor Armstrong

Taylor Armstrong, born Shana Lynette Hughes on June 10, 1971, is an American television personality and advocate. She is best known as an original cast member of the Bravo reality television series The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. In addition to her television career, she is a published author and public speaker.

Armstrong was born in Independence, Kansas. Her family later moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she attended Union High School, served as a cheerleader, and graduated in 1989. Upon relocating to California, she changed her name to Taylor Ford and established her own e-commerce business.

In 2010, Armstrong was approached by television producers regarding an upcoming reality series, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, due to her friendship with Adrienne Maloof. She starred in a main capacity for the first three seasons from 2010 until 2013, and subsequently made guest appearances on the installment between 2013 and 2016. In 2014, she joined the fourth season of VH1's Couples Therapy with her husband, John.

In June 2022, Armstrong starred in the second season of Peacock's The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip, which was filmed in September 2021 at Blue Stone Manor in The Berkshires. In August 2022, it was announced that she would join the seventeenth season of The Real Housewives of Orange County as a "friend of the housewives," making her the first American housewife to switch franchises. She departed the Orange County series after one season, as revealed in November 2023.

In addition to her television work, Armstrong published a memoir in February 2012 through Gallery Books titled Hiding from Reality: My Story of Love, Loss, and Finding the Courage Within. Detailing her experiences with childhood trauma, domestic abuse, and the aftermath of her husband's death, the book became a New York Times Best Seller. Following her husband's death in 2011, she became an advocate against domestic abuse and delivered speeches at Northwestern University, Pennsylvania State University, and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence convention.

In 2019, a screen-capture of Armstrong from the second season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was featured in the viral "woman yelling at a cat" Internet meme, juxtaposing her image with a cat named Smudge. Armstrong reacted positively to the meme and discussed her past relationship.

In her personal life, Armstrong met venture capitalist Russell Armstrong in Beverly Hills, and they married less than a year later. In 2006, she gave birth to their daughter, Kennedy Caroline Armstrong. After experiencing physical and verbal abuse, Armstrong filed for divorce in July 2011, and Russell Armstrong died by suicide the following month. On April 4, 2014, she married attorney John Bluher in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles. During a June 28, 2023 episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County, Armstrong came out as bisexual, stating she had previously been in a five-year relationship with a woman prior to her first marriage.