On Sunday, Bravo unveiled the first promo for the 15th season of The Real Housewives of New York City, which reportedly premieres this fall.
In the commercial – set to Universal Production Music’s 2023 song We Them Girls – all seven cast members provocatively pose with a red apple symbolic of New York’s Big Apple.
‘They’re back,’ the title card reads. ‘Coming soon.’
The preview showed the first glimpse of new full-time housewife Racquel Chevremont, who joined the cast in June after Lizzy Savetsky quit midway through season 14 due to anti-Semitic hate.
The 53-year-old model and art curator is the Bronx-born mother of two children, and she’s ‘what you’d call a later in life lesbian.’
‘When I first came out I lost a lot of people,’ Racquel explained to GLAAD in June.
‘I hope that seeing me and my family and being able to relate to us regardless of your sexual orientation will perhaps change a couple of hearts and minds. Using whatever platform I might have to increase visibility and representation has always been important to me…It’s extremely important to me, [because] this show reaches millions of people.’
Chevremont wasn’t sure they’d even want to cast her as they already had a successful queer woman in the cast, Jenna Lyons.
The 56-year-old LoveSeen CEO welcomed 17-year-old son Beckett Lyons Mazeau during her nine-year marriage to artist Vincent Mazeau, which ended in 2011 – the same year she came out as a lesbian after the New York Post threatened to out her.
Ubah Hassan went topless beneath her black blazer for the promo, and the Somalian 40-year-old is not only a model she’s also the CEO of her hot sauce company, Ubah Hot.
Brynn Whitfield – who’s the only single woman of the cast – wore a silver sparkly bustier for the commercial.
The biracial 38-year-old who works as a freelance marketing communications consultant said of the brand new promo: ‘Buckle up, buttercup. Coming soon.’
Jessel Taank – who’s the founder of Indian retail platform ŌUSHQ – wore black leather gloves and a matching crop-top in the advert.
Sai De Silva – who’s the Brooklyn-born founder of lifestyle blog Scout the City – wore an asymmetric top and a perky ponytail for the promo.
Erin Lichy – who has three children with husband Abe – wore a black dotted halter top while gripping her apple in the promo.
On July 23, the 37-year-old Douglas Elliman realtor, who also runs her own interior design firm Homegirl, shared a behind-the-scenes snap captioned: ‘Back in the game!’
Designer Rebecca Minkoff is the only announced ‘friend’ of season 15, having joined the rebooted cast in April.
‘I’m proud of all the work that Bravo has put into making their shows more representative of the country’s demographics,’ executive producer Andy Cohen said in his THR cover story in May.
‘George Floyd was an important cultural shift that forced us to look at all of our programming. Bravo made it a mandate to diversify its shows. I mean, they had a show, Summer House, that was like a bunch of white people in the Hamptons.
‘Southern Charm was a bunch of white people tomcatting in Charleston. They thought, “Why are a lot of the shows so segregated?” They decided that there needed to be more representation across the dial. And they did it.’
Indeed, the 14th season premiere amassed 1.7M viewers last year, which was a 29% increase from season 13 – according to TheWrap.
RHONY – originally titled ‘Manhattan Moms’ – was a spin-off of The Real Housewives of Orange County, and the OG cast members were paid around $7K to star in the first season back in 2009.
Last Friday, Deadline reported that Bravo is developing a spin-off series for RHONY alum Dorinda Medley (2015-2020) centered on her Blue Stone Manor estate.
