‘The Real Housewives of New York City’ Star Brynn Whitfield on That Explosive Season Finale

For many Bravo fans this season, The Real Housewives of New York City has not necessarily lived up to expectations. While the series is in its 15th season, this is only the second season for RHONY newcomers since the show was rebooted with fresh faces and a fresh perspective. Despite support from Housewives executive producer Andy Cohen himself, who defended the show in an interview with Deadline, saying he “really believes in this group of women,” this season’s low ratings speak for themselves.

Tuesday night’s finale, though, fulfilled its promise to be full of drama and chaos with the cast ending their vacation together in Puerto Rico in pandemonium. After a season-long feud brewing between Brynn Whitfield and Ubah Hassan, tensions boiled over. Whitfield tells the rest of the women that she’s especially upset with Hassan for suggesting she “slept with someone” to get hired on RHONY, after she had confided in Hassan that she had been sexually assaulted. Once Hassan was told of Whitfield’s accusation, “Mount Vesuvius erupted,” as fellow cast member Jessel Tank put it. Hassan confronted Whitfield, screaming and yelling, with Whitfield eventually conceding it’s possible that Hassan didn’t remember her revelation, as it came during an otherwise frantic conversation.

Whitfield spoke to Rolling Stone about filming in Puerto Rico, where she stands with Hassan and the other cast members today, and what she thinks of the pushback RHONY has received from some fans.

How did you feel entering into filming Season Two?
Watching back the first season, I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s me. There I am.” At first it was cringey seeing myself, but it felt accurate. I think you turn the volume up a little bit on who you are, because you’re aware there are five cameras around you. But I felt pretty comfortable going into the second season. It’s the easiest job in the world, you just have to show up, be yourself, and say whatever comes to mind.

This season, you opened up more about your fertility journey. How did it feel to share that publicly?
It felt natural, because it’s what I’m going through. I’m at this point in my life, in my thirties, where I know I’m ready to be a parent. I can financially, physically do it. But you think this other thing has to happen where you need to find romantic love, traditionally speaking, so then you’re kind of at this fork in the road and you’re like, maybe it’s not sequential. Maybe one can come before the other. And egg freezing was important to me because it was the first step of feeling like I was doing something about it.

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In a vulnerable moment this season on camera with your brother, you also shared that you have been sexually assaulted and continue to grapple with that. Was that challenging to discuss on camera?
One of the first calls I had with [producers] about this season was them saying, “We’d really like to get some [scenes] of you dating,” and I was like, “Can I just be honest with you guys? This is where I’m really at and this is what I’m going through.” So I filmed with my brother and I shared [about my sexual assault and] the connection between that and why I’m kind of dodging dating, and why I make jokes about only dating billionaires.

Last season, I didn’t intend on sharing all the shit that happened in my childhood but I did, and it helped a lot in ways that years and years of therapy couldn’t. It was really cathartic. So this season, I thought sharing was going to help me feel better. But with my childhood stuff, I’ve had so many years to heal and deal, so it was a little bit different from sharing something that I’m currently going through versus something that I’ve had a lot of time to process.

How much do you pay attention to what people say about you online? 
I wish I could say I don’t pay attention to any of it. I go through phases. It hurts and is frustrating because people don’t know the full story. You’re only seeing 42 minutes of something that’s edited. It’s so tempting to explain yourself and provide more context because they’re making a very serious judgment about you. If you’re not careful, you could get sucked into it, but, but then you exercise the mute button on social media. At the end of the day, I am a stranger and you’re seeing like 10 percent of the real me. 

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When the cast went to Puerto Rico, Ubah made a comment about how maybe you had sex with someone to get on the show. Why did this cut deep for you?
I have worked so hard my entire life. I put myself through college, I never had mommy or daddy to give me a job or even help me write a resume, I lived on friends’ couches, I cried in the bathrooms of PR agencies, I learned how to negotiate and work my way up, and I worked my ass off. I feel like it’s hurtful as a woman to have my whole career attempted to be diminished and wrongfully equated to something having to do with sex. That’s just crazy to me and offensive. As a woman, I think we can do better than that. if you have a problem with someone, that’s fine, but suggesting something that’s pretty disgusting doesn’t settle well with me. I used my brain, I didn’t have to do anything else. Women don’t have to lie, cheat, steal, or fuck in order to get to the top. 

What was it like for you to watch the finale episode after living through it?
You live through it, which is one thing, and then to watch it back you have to relive it. Time goes by, too, so if there has been a reconciliation or if there has been any sort of growth, you then watch it back and you’re revisiting it all over again. 

Initially, you told the other women that you confided in Ubah how you’d been sexually assaulted and were upset she made that comment about you knowing about your past experience. Then, later that night, you told the women maybe Ubah didn’t “clock it” because you had been hysterical about other things, including a friend’s death by suicide, when you told her. Can you clarify what happened, from your perspective?
It’s not right to assume that everyone remembers everything that you say all the time and then hold them accountable for that. I know for a fact that I said it, but when someone’s screaming into the phone, the other person might not necessarily hear them. At that point, she was problem-solving and being a great friend, saying, “OK, do you need me to get a car to come and get you?” as I’m rambling on. Just because you say things doesn’t necessarily mean people hear them. You can’t sit here and say that everyone I’ve ever told every single thing to is going to remember it perfectly. I know what I said and I know that I did say it. I went through a laundry list of things [in that conversation]. I was hysterical, and I was like, “Why does this keep happening to me? Why do bad things happen to me?” I remember I texted my brother afterwards. I was like, “Oh my God, I told Ubah,” and he was like, “It’s fine, you can trust her.” I did trust Ubah with that after what she’s been through herself, and she always was a really, really good friend to me. At that point, I hadn’t even told any of the other girls. 

Before the cameras went down for the night and everyone went to sleep, Ubah took you outside of the house alone and wanted to apologize to you. Why weren’t you open to her apology?
I get how, as a viewer, it makes sense that you want to get to closure but in real life, I need time to process if I’m truly offended or hurt. I don’t want to talk about it at that time. I need to cool off and take three days or so and then I’m ready to talk, because I have a clear mind, and I’ll be receptive to what you’re saying. If I get that hurt, I’ll just go into defense mode, and my walls go up immediately. We had been filming all day for days on end, and there were multiple instances [with Ubah] in Puerto Rico. First she was like, “I’ll go to a hotel, I have more money than her,” and there’s so much stuff that wasn’t shown. This is four days in the making so no, I’m not just all of a sudden now, late at night, going to be like, “I’m open to resolution.” I just wasn’t open to it at the time. 

In the finale, some of the women said they felt taken advantage of by you and accused you of intentionally lying. What’s your response to that?
That was shocking. You’re telling me that in the three minutes from when I’m called horrible names [by Ubah] and I’m obviously upset that I somehow devised a plan? It’s disgusting that I’m talking about two things that I would hope that no woman or person would have to experience — suicide and sexual assault — and everyone’s like, “Brynn, we feel taken advantage of.” Maybe don’t use those words to describe the situation. I just feel like I wasn’t shown much [respect]. These are difficult, serious things we’re talking about. That’s how it felt for me the whole season, like I was always being attacked. I would go into filming a lot of the time and I would feel dread and despair. I was just like, every single thing is going to turn into something. It was weird energy from the very first scene. I have text messages from everyone saying, “Oh my God, hi. I love you. Can’t wait to see you,” and then it was a 180. I was like, “Oh, OK, it’s Assassin’s Creed now and everyone’s geared up.” Other Bravo stars warned me at BravoCon, they were like, “You had a great first season,” and I was like, “Yeah, that was easy,” and they said, “Everyone’s going to come for you.”

Why do you think that 180 happened?
I truly don’t know. I look back, I’ve scanned every text, I’ve checked every conversation, and I have no idea. Then I become avoidant and I just shut down.

You left Puerto Rico earlier than the rest of the cast after the incident with Ubah. How did you feel watching the scene in the finale with the rest of the women discussing how they thought you manipulated them?
That night before, I was chased down the hallway and then producers shut the door and told me to wait a while. Then Ubah and Jessel went to a hotel. They brought in a security guard to stay at the house with us, and that was at two in the morning. I texted a producer and I was like, “I want to leave, put me on the next flight. I’m out. This feels like the Jerry Springer show. This has gone too far.” This is my life, and these are serious, traumatic subjects that are turning into she said-she said fodder. I don’t understand why I’m not being met with grace. Let’s just have a conversation, not fucking screaming and just, like, “Fuck you bitch, fuck you.” So I requested to leave. I feel so safe with everyone at the production company and at Bravo, and I felt safe with how they handled sharing my sexual assault story in Central Park with my brother. It was never my intention to share it with the girls and then that transpired, but I felt so weird that night. I remember they were taking off my microphone and I was like, “How do I talk to these people now that they know this thing about me?”

I was so irritated when I saw what they were saying about me because they’re like,
“She’s psycho. She looks like she’s fine and she left.” No, I was mortified. In the moment, I’m very much like, “Everything’s fine,” and I can make a joke or distract from something, but I was like, “Just get me out of here.” I don’t feel comfortable anymore, and I feel like everyone’s looking at me differently. It wasn’t like, “Oh, I’m cool with everything, everything’s normal, and I’m just going to leave.” I requested to leave. I requested to be put on the first flight out.

What happened after Puerto Rico?
I came home and saw two days later they’re all dancing at a concert and stuff and I’m in bed crying on Zoom with my therapist. Unfortunately, I’ve had way too many scenarios in my life where I didn’t have the luxury of feeling my feelings or I didn’t have the luxury of being able to process something. It was like, suck it up and you move on. If I even dip my toe in the ocean of my despair, I will get sucked in. I think people need to be honest, deal with their emotions and their feelings, and get therapy, get help, and be in support groups, all of which I’ve done, but I just don’t have the luxury of going there all the time. I process things later when I get to a safe place and remove myself from a situation.

Directly after Puerto Rico, I wish that someone would’ve asked me, “Hey, let’s calmly sit down and listen to what you have to say.” That would have felt really nice, I think, to have that. I didn’t get that in Puerto Rico. I certainly didn’t get it afterwards. More so, it’s been like I’m the bad guy. 

Where do you stand with everyone today? 
I did feel better after the reunion to clear the air on these things. The reunion felt like going to a workout: You don’t really want to go workout and might even not enjoy some parts of it while you’re doing it, but you know afterwards you’re going to feel better for it. No pain, no gain. It was like, I want to hear where you’re coming from, can you listen to where I’m coming from, and can we at least not have this massive void between us? After the reunion I personally felt like — are we in a position where everything is fixed and perfect? No, not remotely. But at least we’re now, maybe hopefully at step one.

I’m always cool with Jenna [Lyons] and Raquel [Chevremont]. Erin [Lichy] feels like a sister. I was just texting with her and [her husband] Abe the other day, I feel like I’m fine with them. I think Sai [De Silva] and I still have stuff to work on. I miss my friendship with Sai a lot. And then with Jesesl [Tank] I didn’t realize, but I should have realized, I said something that upset her, so I need to work on my friendship with Jesesl. With Ubah, I think what’s done is done. Ubah’s a great person. She has a heart of gold. I think she loses her temper, but she has the most beautiful heart and at the end of the day I know I’m also a good person, so I feel like we will get back. But it takes time to repair.

When there was a rumor about you leaving the show circulating online, you clarified that it was a fake post created by AI. Do you have any plans to leave RHONY?
No. I mean, you’re never guaranteed. Even franchises that have been around for 17 years, it’s the same song and dance. You never know until a month before you pick back up filming — you don’t know if you’re renewed, you don’t know who comes back, or any of these things. But I feel like with this show, it’s not our show or my show. It’s a little bit of the women who came before us and whoever comes after us. It sounds cheesy but I just think we’re the temporary guardians of this thing and you want to make New York proud.

There’s been some criticism about how viewers aren’t loving the reboot, with viewership actually down this season. Andy Cohen has defended the reboot, saying he thinks you’re an aspirational group of women and it’s a new look into RHONY. Have you seen those criticisms? What do you make of them?
I think you have to trust that the Bravo gods know what they’re doing — they’ve been doing this for a while — and we just have to be ourselves. It’s one thing to try to make a new show and it’s another thing when you’re entering a legacy show. We were up against making a show that was beloved and that people weren’t ready to let go of. It’s massive shoes to fill and I don’t know if we ever will, honestly. I don’t know if we need to. I think it’s just different shoes in the same closet. I love the old RHONY, I still watch it. You can’t recreate that. It was a moment in time. That was the zeitgeist at the time, the world was a different place. Hopefully in 10 years people who are criticizing our version now will look back and think it was way funnier and better. I just say to people, give it a chance and let it grow on you.