Bravo’s classic ‘Real Housewives of New York City’ is dead
“The Real Housewives of New York City” as we know it is dead, Page Six has exclusively learned.
On Sunday, we reported that contract negotiations for the version of the show that featured a beloved cast including Luann de Lesseps, Ramona Singer and Sonja Morgan had stalled.
Now we’re told that the talks have officially collapsed, that Bravo has rescinded its offers to the talent and that it currently has no plans to put the show — which it rebranded as the “Legacy” edition last year — on the air.
Sources stress that the network “never says never” and that the show could be revived in some form in the future, much like “The Real Housewives of Miami,” which was pulled from cable in 2013 and brought back eight years later with a mostly new cast on NBC streaming service Peacock.
Meanwhile, the network is forging ahead with the completely revamped “The Real Housewives of New York City,” which will star a brand-new, ethnically diverse set of women including former J. Crew honcho Jenna Lyons, Sai De Silva and Ubah Hassan.
We had reported that Bravo was in talks with a group of the “original” cast members, including de Lesseps, Morgan, Jill Zarin, Kelly Bensimon and Dorinda Medley, for what would technically have been Season 1 of “Legacy.” However, Singer and Tinsley Mortimer bowed out before contract negotiations began in earnest.
But sources said the talent felt they were getting lowball offers from Bravo and that the network wasn’t willing to guarantee that they would appear in enough episodes per season.
“It’s just not worth it,” sniffed a source close to the stars.
Meanwhile, production sources told us that the talent seriously overestimated how much money they’re worth, with one source saying they seem to think “they should make what the cast of ‘Friends’ made in their heyday.”
We’re now told that the network officially rescinded the offers by email around 6 p.m. Monday.
“RHONY” — the second-longest-running iteration of Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchise after its Orange County, Calif., counterpart — debuted in 2008 and aired continuously with a gradually evolving cast for 13 seasons.
It began that run with a slate of stars including de Lesseps, Singer, Zarin, Bethenny Frankel and Alex McCord, and it ended in 2021 with de Lesseps, Singer, Morgan, Leah McSweeney and Eboni K. Williams.
The cast on the last season got along so catastrophically poorly that the network decided not to film a reunion episode, which typically concludes every season across the entire franchise. It also decided to scrap the entire cast and start fresh.
Shortly after, Bravo announced plans to split “The Real Housewives of New York City” into two shows, relaunching “regular” “RHONY” with an all-new cast and introducing the “Legacy” edition featuring veteran cast members.
Meanwhile, de Lesseps and Morgan have been taping their own series inspired by the Paris Hilton reality show “The Simple Life,” which aired in the early 2000s.
Bravo declined to comment.
