Josef Newgarden. Jason Mendez/Getty Images
Despite the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City fangirling at the sight of him, IndyCar driver Josef Newgarden was left stumped after making an appearance on the Bravo reality series.
Newgarden, 34, made a cameo on a November 2024 episode of the show, in which Bronwyn Newport treated the cast to a trip to an IndyCar race in Thermal, California, outside Palm Springs. Upon Newgarden meeting the Housewives at the track, Newport called him “the handsomest” and cast member Lisa Barlow yelled, “Take your shirt off!”
The women even tried setting up Newgarden with single cast member Heather Gay, but were told Newgarden is married to his wife, Ashley Welch, and that the couple share 2-year-old son Kota.
“I didn’t even know what was happening,” Newgarden admitted in an exclusive interview with Us Weekly “I’m serious, this is the way this stuff happens. We’re at the track, we’re at this race. Someone pops into our engineering office and they’re like, ‘Hey, there’s some people that are here, there’s some guests. Can you please come out and say hi?’”
Newgarden continued, “I came out and I said hi to everybody. They’re like, ‘They’re going to film you, so don’t worry about it.’ I’m like, ‘OK, no problem.’ And then you don’t hear anything about it for a couple months, right? And then I get all these texts when the show is on. I don’t know this show. I have not seen it.”
The driver had “no idea” his interaction with the Housewives would be featured on the show, but called them “super sweet.”
After the episode aired, Newgarden joked about the surprising demographic that responded the most to his Bravo debut.
“You know what was funny? You get texts from husbands,” Newgarden said. “It’s all men. Every text message was from a guy and they were like, ‘I was watching with my wife,’ or, ‘My wife had it on TV and I noticed you were on there. That’s kinda cool.’ I got like 20 texts like that. I thought it was really funny.”
Outside of his newfound Housewives fame, Newgarden is also the face of IndyCar’s inaugural season on Fox, which officially kicks off on March 2. Newgarden is featured in a flashy commercial to promote the collaboration, which spotlights Newgarden’s chiseled jawline and features an appearance from Tom Brady.
For Newgarden, being in such a place of prominence for IndyCar is not something he takes lightly.
“I care about the growth of the sport, just being a competitor and loving IndyCar,” he said. “I want to see it reach the highest highs it can. I remember when I was younger, IndyCar used to be a household name in North America. It reached beyond just America. It was a global sport. I think it can get back to that point.”
Newgarden added, “I care deeply about its representation and the way it’s perceived. I think Fox is really going to capture the essence of what IndyCar is, the cool factor of it. Because it’s always been right there. It’s just a matter of exposure.”
Fox’s coverage of the 2025 IndyCar season starts with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Sunday, March 2.
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