We told you there was something else afoot.
After it was reported that Lizzy Savetsky left the ‘Real Housewives of New York City’ reboot claiming she was the victim of anti-semitic remarks, it’s now being reported that she actually left after her husband said the N-word to producers.
via Page Six:
Now it turns out that, in fact, things went off the rails big time a few weeks ago while Savetsky was filming a scene with co-star Brynn Whitfield, and got worse from there.
We’re told Whitfield asked Orthodox Jew Savetsky, who has a reputation as a match-maker, if she’d set her up with a Jewish man. But Savetsky said that — while she has no problem with Jews dating gentiles — she prefers only to set up Jews with other Jews, sources said.
She added that Orthodox Jews favor marriages between Jews to preserve the ethnic lineage. We’re told that she explained that Judaism is not just a belief system, but also a people.
Sources say that Whitfield felt affronted, and said something to the effect that Savetsky’s terminology sounds like that used by “horrific people [meaning Nazis] who did evil things to your people” would take, which shocked Savetsky.
According to multiple insiders, the tension caused by the scene led to an off-camera phone call between Savetsky and Whitfield, during which they discussed the power of racial slurs.
We’re told that Whitfield, who is half-Black, used the N-word during the call, but rather than using the term “N-word” she said the word it represents in full. We’re told that Savetsky got the impression that Whitfield planned to tell other cast members that Savetsky had also used the N-word during the call.
Sources say that Savetsky’s husband, Dr. Ira Savetsky, was outraged and reported the alleged incident to the show’s producers.
But we’re told that when he recounted the call, Ira also said the actual word rather than saying “the N-word.”
We hear he later apologized, but the damage was done and we’re told that that’s when “conversations began” about the pair exiting the show.
Insiders were keen to point out that Savetsky really did also experience an overwhelming volume anti-Semitism online, and that the N-word incident alone was not the sole reason for her leaving the show.
The episode is something of an irony.
Before that last season of “RHONY,” the network had been getting heat because of its all-white cast. In an attempt to redress the issue, producers added the show’s first Black cast member, Eboni K. Williams.
But that experiment ended in disaster when Williams accused a fellow cast member of racism, sparking a major third-party investigation that effectively ended the show as we know it.
Bravo announced in the spring that it planned to overhaul the show with a brand new, racially diverse cast. But the network appears to have stepped straight into a race scandal, despite going to great pains to avoid exactly that.
The cast now includes creative director Sai De Silva, model and philanthropist Ubah Hassan, home renovation guru Erin Dana Lichy, former J.Crew president Jenna Lyons, fashion publicist and brand consultant Jessel Taank, and Whitfield.
What is it with the New York ‘housewives’ and racism? They can’t seem to get it together.
