‘RHONY’: Is Elyse Slaine Behind Jill Zarin and Bethenny Frankel’s Friendship?
Although she’s a new face on the series, Elyse Slaine from The Real Housewives of New York City was close to a number of cast members for decades, including alums Jill Zarin and Bethenny Frankel.
Ramona Singer shared in an upcoming preview clip she’s known Slaine for years. “Elyse is the woman that I’ve known for literally 20 years,” she shared. Indeed, Slaine’s ties to this cast run deep as she revealed that she was behind sparking the friendship between Zarin and Frankel.
“I thought that they would enjoy knowing one another. I was having dinner with my then-husband and Jill and Bobby [Zarin] and I just invited Bethenny to come along because I thought, ‘Oh, they would really like one another,’ and I love connecting people,” she shared with US Weekly.
All three women parted ways
Viewers saw the tight bond and then the destruction of Frankel and Zarin’s relationship. The women, who were close friends, parted ways when Zarin didn’t think Frankel was being very responsive when her husband was first diagnosed with cancer. Zarin tried to turn the cast against Frankel, which ultimately backfired.
Slaine shared that she too had a falling out with Zarin. Apparently they stopped speaking, according to US Weekly, but reconnected after Zarin’s husband died.
“A few weeks after Bobby died, we went on a group trip with a bunch of friends to Morocco and we’ve been in touch since,” Slaine said. “We’ve had dinner together with another mutual friend. We talk on the phone.” Adding that she is happy to see that Zarin has found love again.
“It’s funny because after Bobby passed, I thought, ‘Oh my God. Poor, Jill. Will she ever find another guy as smitten with her as Bobby?’ And then comes Gary who looks at her like she’s his long-lost puppy,” she shared.
Slaine and Frankel drifted apart
Although it appears she and Zarin fought, Slaine shared that she and Frankel just lost touch with each other. “If we see each other, we’re certainly very friendly to one another. But from what I hear, Bethenny’s always great, right? Regardless of the fact that we lost touch with one another, we had a falling out. It was really over nothing.” She added, that she has “tremendous respect” for Frankel too.
Frankel has seemingly drifted or cut ties with most of the current cast too. The season opened with the cast being blindsided by Frankel’s announcement that she was leaving the show. The cast expressed shock but later shared they were downright angry. “We found out through the press, which I thought was disrespectful to the cast,” Singer told The Daily Beast.
“It’s really hard for me to say that I’ll miss her all that much,” Luann de Lesseps said. “But as they say on Broadway, the show must go on. Without you. Like I say in the show, I wasn’t that disappointed because, you know, I’ve gotten a lot of grief from her in the past. As much as we’ve had good times, there’s been a lot of bad times. I was reminded that she hasn’t been supportive of me in a lot of ways.”
