Eboni K. Williams Is ‘Rooting’ for the ‘RHONY’ Reboot: ‘It’s My Legacy’ [Exclusive]
Eboni K. Williams appeared in only one season of The Real Housewives of New York City, but she believes the RHONY reboot was springboarded from the impact she made on season 13.
“I’m rooting for these new women in this reboot,” Williams told Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “This reboot is my legacy. This is a derivative of the disruption that my presence brought to this show. So I want these women to win. At the same time, they’re also not a preexisting group of friends.”
“So you’re kind of right back where you started from, which is why before cameras went up, they had to come down. They had their first scandal before they even hit air,” Williams said, referring to the casting scramble after Lizzy Savetsky was abruptly off the cast.”
“And that was also a really s***ty, awful situation. I hope they were able to get their bearings back and they go on to have a successful season,” Williams said. “But yeah, there’s something very special when if a group of real b****** that really f*** with each other and really love each other because then we can have all the conflict and all the pettiness, but deep down it’s like college, it’s is like a sorority. We love each other. The audience will always come back with us.”
Eboni K. Williams couldn’t penetrate the existing ‘RHONY’ relationships
Williams’ RHONY season was riddled with problems too because she filmed season 13 during the height of Covid, which hit New York City especially hard.
“The Covid of it all was awful because also New York, just like in Sex and the City is a character on this show. The city is one of the women, it is one of the Housewives. We also had one of the smallest casts ever, the mistake, everybody concedes.”
“We needed more women and also we needed some authentic relationships. That group of women, Lu [de Lesseps], Ramona [Singer] and Sonja [Morgan], for better or for worse, are an institution in and of themselves. And I think they all admit this, they are a very hard group to penetrate,” she said. “And that’s why even Tinsley [Mortimer], one could argue, could barely penetrate. Leah [McSweeney] obviously barely penetrated. And yes, I definitely didn’t penetrate. And also it didn’t help that at some point I didn’t want to penetrate because I had seen too much.”
‘RHONY’ Season 13 ended with heartbreak and pain
Williams believes that RHONY producers envisioned a spicy, but engaging season with her as the new addition. “The network chose to bring on me. A very outspoken, very unapologetic Black academic lawyer who has a Birkin. That was very intentional on the part of production.”
“And I think theoretically, it should have gone like this. It should have been: We’re going to take these kind of limited Upper East Side, older white women who are, you know, beloved but also ridiculous with the Bravo wink of it all.”
“We’re going to bring this new spitfire. Pretty young, sharp, cool Black woman. And it’s going to create all this amazing conflict it’s going to make for great TV. And as we know, it didn’t happen like that at all.”
“What ended up happening instead was a lot of brokenheartedness, a lot of trauma, a lot of pain, a lot of misunderstanding and confusion and a lot of hostility towards one another. And that part is sad still to me,” she said.
Williams has certainly moved on and continues to share her hot takes on everything from politics to pop culture on her Holding Court podcast.
