Jenna Lyons is keeping her love life away from the Bravo cameras — at least for now.
via People:
On Sunday’s episode of The Real Housewives of New York City, the interior designer and consultant revealed to her costars that there was one thing in her life she won’t be bringing on the show: her girlfriend.
“Because I’ve had so much press, I am very quiet about that so I’m not sharing that,” Jenna told Jessel Taank, Sai De Silva, Ubah Hassan and Erin Lichy during a group dinner at Topping Rose House in the Hamptons, after admitting that she’s dating someone now.
Asked by a producer during a confessional why she had to keep their identity a secret, Jenna said, “My life has put me in the public eye for my job and other things I’ve done. And that is my choice. And someone does not want to be in that with me, then I have to respect that.”
No further information was given about Jenna’s “lucky lady,” as Erin put it — including how long the two have been together or how they met. But when questioned by Jessel if she’s happy, Jenna said “yes.”
“That’s the most important thing,” Jessel noted.
But Sai didn’t seem to feel the same way. “I want to know what’s going on with her relationship,” the creator and influencer said. “She knows my husband, why can’t I know her girlfriend? We’re friends, that’s what friends do — we know each other’s spouses. I’m hoping she’ll let her guard down a little bit.”
Earlier during the dinner, which fellow Housewife Brynn Whitfield missed because she was under the weather, Jenna opened up about the moment she realized she was a lesbian.
The former executive creative director and president of J.Crew was nearing the end of her marriage to ex-husband Vincent Mazeau, whom she wed in 2002 and divorced in 2011, when those feelings surfaced during a dinner out with a female friend. Up until that point, she had “no idea” she was attracted to women.
“I was in a tricky situation,” Jenna recalled on Sunday’s episode. “My very close friend was gay and we were having a conversation, and my relationship was falling apart with my husband. And I asked her, like, ‘What happens with women?’ I just like, was curious — I had no idea, honestly, same way you probably don’t. And by the end of the conversation, after a lot of detail, I realized that I was… I felt sort of… hot. I had never had that feeling before. I just wanted to kiss her.”
That emotion came as a shock to Jenna, who insisted she “didn’t even know” she was gay up until that point. “I was completely surprised,” she said, clarifying that she didn’t kiss her friend despite her desire to. “We were sitting at dinner, but I wanted to. Something kind of went off inside of me. I was like, ‘Something feels different here.’ And then I started to have like, dreams about it.”
All of this came about after Jenna, now 55, turned 40. “Something happened when I turned 40,” the mother of one, who shares 16-year-old son Beckett with Vincent, explained in her confessional interview. “I had this beautiful little boy, I had this great job. I had this feeling inside that I wasn’t happy and I remember thinking to myself, ‘I don’t want to feel like this for another 40 years.'”
At the time, Jenna said she “didn’t even know women were gay.”
“When I was growing up, I had no idea it was a thing,” she said. “I knew men were, I had no idea women were. It just wasn’t a thing. The only person who was remotely gay who was not admitted was [famed tennis star] Billie Jean King.”
But Jenna didn’t have much time to process it before she was outed in the press. Not even a month later, she got a call at her desk at J.Crew. It was the brand’s CEO and their head of PR, telling her that the New York Posthad information that she was seeing a woman after spotting the two out to dinner. “Would you like to confirm or deny,” the paper had asked, according to Jenna.
“Even talking [about it] right now, I just got hot,” Jenna said. “I was already in the process of getting divorced but I had not told my mom, I had not told my brother, I had not told my family, I had not told anyone at work. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was three weeks into this thing! I had no idea. It was so early.”
“Anyway, I heard the words come out of my mouth. I just said, ‘Confirm,'” she recounted.
While it was “one of the hardest things” Jenna said she’s “ever experienced,” she ultimately looks back on the moment, thankful for all the support she received. “I’m so grateful by how incredibly gracious everyone in the office [was],” she said. “Not my mom, but everybody else.”
