Former Real Housewives of New York star Ramona Singer was accused of using the n-word and other instances of racism in a new report about the smash Bravo franchise in Vanity Fair.
Singer was already infamously the subject of an internal investigation at Bravo after RHONY’s first Black cast member, Eboni K. Williams, accused her of racism in a complaint filed in 2021, following the end of the show’s 13th season. At the time, Bravo said the “investigation was closed after nothing substantial was found.”
At the time, the specifics of the complaint were not known, but according to the new Vanity Fair story, Singer used the N-word in conversation with a Black crew member during production on Season 13 in 2020 and 2021. Former RHONY producer Darian Edmondson (a Black woman) said Singer used the slur after Singer filmed a conversation with Williams, in which Singer reportedly said she did not want to talk about race, before asking Williams the ethnicity of her new boyfriend.
According to Edmondson, after the cameras were turned off, Singer told her the conversation reminded her of when Jewish colleagues called her a “shiksa,” a Yiddish word for a non-Jewish woman. Edmondson reportedly told Singer, “Ramona, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Singer allegedly responded, “Oh, it’s literally like somebody calling you a n—-r.”
Singer denied using the slur, calling Edmondson’s recollection of the conversation a “misinterpretation,” and adding: “I did describe an incident where I was called a shiksa while working in college, but I did not compare the the [sic] two experiences.”
Williams, however, argued that the results of the investigation into Singer’s use of the n-word came down to semantics. She said that during a call with NBCU executives and an outside lawyer about the incident, someone on the call acknowledged that Singer had used the slur, but didn’t specifically call Edmondson the n-word. Williamson credited NBCU’s chief diversity officer, who is biracial, of responding, “No, what we’re not gonna do is sit here and litigate the capacity in which the n-word was used in the presence of a Black woman.”
Williams added: “That was the only time I felt like anybody on the other side of this had any competency… What I recognized even in the midst of my own trauma is I still had the most power of any Black person involved in this thing. These are just young Black women trying to go to fucking work.”
The story included several other racially insensitive remarks Singer allegedly made. Once, she allegedly told a Black woman staffer, “There’s so many of you guys here now, please don’t change your hair as I’m not gonna be able to remember anybody’s names.” (Singer said this was “strictly a commentary on my inability to remember names.”) Another time, during a racial sensitivity meeting before filming had begun — which Williams described as a “cover your ass” move — the cast members were reportedly told to avoid racist stereotypes, like those about Black fathers not being present. Singer allegedly said, “What if they don’t have a father? Why can’t I say that? Most of them don’t.”
Singer claimed she was just asking a “question about a statistic I had read about single-parent households where children with single-parent households were statistically less likely to succeed than two-parent households.”
Another incident occurred after filming ended on a conversation between Williams and Luann de Lesseps. That scene (which did air on the show) found Williams accusing de Lesseps of displaying “white fragility” and then explaining the term. While that part aired, a person present alleged that after de Lesseps left, Singer “slammed her hands on the table” and said, ‘This is why we didn’t need Black people on the show… This is gonna ruin our show.” (Singer said this “absolutely” did not happen, and claimed she “supported adding diverse cast members well before before Eboni was added.”)
In a statement shared with Rolling Stone, Singer reiterated her denials, saying, “I stopped filming RHONY in February 2021. These accusations were all aired publicly in September 2021. These claims were investigated by the network back then and they found no basis for the claims. I stand by all my comments in the article. I am extraordinarily disappointed that Vanity Fair and Page Six felt the need to re-amplify this non-story.”
