The ‘Real Housewives of New York City’ get real – on and off camera

NEW YORK – What you see is (mostly) what you get on “The Real Housewives of New York City.”
At least for the Bravo reality show’s stars Sai De Silva, Jessel Taank and Ubah Hassan, picking up from where the OG “RHONY” stars (composed at times of Ramona Singer, Luann de Lesseps, Sonja Morgan, Bethenny Frankel and Dorinda Medley) left off in 2021’s Season 13 of the series.
Last year’s Season 14 (with a revamped cast) saw the new, more diverse group of women, rounded out by Jenna Lyons, Erin Lichy and Brynn Whitfield. And Tuesday’s Season 15 premiere (9 EDT/PDT) welcomes newbies Rebecca Minkoff and Racquel Chevremont.
The Bravo-fication of the women is palpable: Even though each was accomplished and good looking before starring on the show, they’re no longer the first-season reality rookies. Somehow glossier and subtly even more put together, the ladies say they now understand the game.
Taank calls the show “the best mirror.”
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“I thought I was the sweet little Indian girl that no one could hate!” Taank, 41, says with a laugh. “And then, of course, you see yourself, and I’m like, ‘OK, maybe I do sound a little bit brat-ish.'”
“I didn’t know what to expect, really,” says De Silva, a former mommy blogger-turned-fashion influencer. “I do think that people found my honesty very jarring, instead of refreshing.” The Brooklyn-bred star’s nonchalant approach didn’t land exactly as planned, but it pushed De Silva to “deliver the message a little bit differently.”
Taank, a fashion publicist and founder of e-commerce platform Oushq, senses her British perspective might have initially rubbed American audiences the wrong way. “I was very shocked. I was watching the first episode (of Season 14) on my couch, and I thought I was doing just fine, and (husband) Pavit (Randhawa) was on Twitter, and he was like, ‘People don’t like you.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, my God.'”
“I’m still very much my honest, transparent self, but at the same time, I don’t live my life for how others perceive me,” says De Silva, 43. “I am what I am. So take it or leave it.”
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Hassan, 41, still finds it difficult to balance real life with the job of creating a reality TV show, which the group filmed weekly from Tuesdays to Saturdays. In her modeling career, “none of us have our family here, so people I work with have become kind of my family, friends,” she says. But in the Bravo world, “I still don’t know how to check in and check out.”
In typical New York fashion, there’s slight chaos as the three co-stars gather for our interview. Taank is the last to arrive, but it’s not really her fault: The U.N. General Assembly is causing gridlock traffic in the city, to the point where De Silva hopped out of her car and onto the subway while Hassan hoofed it a couple blocks from hers.
It’s another regular day for the women, who’ve bonded over motherhood, childhood hardships and disdain for Catch, and brawled over sunglasses, digs at their husbands and private flights.
Taank, who shared her IVF journey on camera, calls the show a “huge responsibility”: “I know so many women would want to be in our shoes.”
“I wish I could scream so loud for everyone to understand, it’s only 45 minutes!” Hassan says. “They cannot show everything. … So there’s a lot of things that you guys are not seeing yet,” that producers discarded or added to make viewers “question” what’s happening.
The three are seemingly close, having moved beyond being “coworkers” in their first season and into an actual working friendship.
“I definitely felt like coworkers last season, where we clock in and (castmates) are getting on our nerves. But this year it’s a lot different.”
How long it’ll last is yet to be determined: The Season 15 premiere teases a blow-up fight between Hassan and Whitfield, as well as infighting between Lyons and Lichy and surprising closeness between De Silva and Taank, who disagreed all last season. The ladies sidestep the current status of everyone’s friendships.
“I think we’re good,” says De Silva, then quickly qualifying the statement: “I’m under the impression that we’re good.”
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“If there’s certain emotions or feelings, maybe before I would be afraid to express them and I wouldn’t know how to tread, but I think we’re all a little bit more comfortable to express how we’re truly feeling,” says Taank, who adds this season features “less walking on eggshells, and more expressing how you actually feel.”
All relationships are under the microscope when the reality-TV cameras are on. Hassan says she “wanted to share my relationship” with now-boyfriend Oliver Daschel, the Connecticut man whose concealment caused last season’s finale argument with Whitfield. “I wanted to talk about it, but I really couldn’t, because I was like, I don’t know this guy. I’m in this public space.”
Hassan says her married co-stars come “as a package,” a different scenario than navigating dating someone new. “It’s not like some of us trying to hide a relationship because it’s so new, right? That was a little difficult.”
“There’s a lot of character development this season,” says De Silva. “We bonded in different ways that we didn’t last year. … It’s just going to be very genuine friendships that will be able to translate on camera very well. The tension is definitely there between friends, and that happens automatically,” she says, teasing, “but you’re going to have to stick around to find out exactly how that happens.”
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The new season of “The Real Housewives of New York City” premieres Oct. 1, on Bravo (9 EDT/PDT), with episodes airing Tuesdays. Fans can also stream the next day on Peacock.