‘Real Housewives’ Star Inks Surprising Deal to Return to Franchise

Heavy/Bravo Jenna Lyons is back on RHONY.

The second season of the rebooted “Real Housewives of New York” franchise has been confirmed, and all of the women — including Jenna Lyons — will be back for more fun in the city. While there was some uncertainty about Lyons’ future with the show, she ultimately decided to ink a deal to return.

However, Lyons admits that there was one thing in particular she needed in order to return. She told Bravo that she wanted her relationship left out of filming — and the network complied.

“I have a relationship, but I would like to not name her. I want to keep her out of the press. That is my commitment to her. It’s off the table. I joined this process. She did not,” Lyons told The New York Times.

“There was some concern about my ability, just time-wise, to commit to it, and that was a big deal. I also have a new relationship and wanted to maintain privacy. It was not just me. We all had to figure out, like, Can this work? I wasn’t sure. Definitely not sure,” she added.

On March 28, Bravo confirmed that Sai De Silva, Ubah Hassan, Erin Lichy, Jessel Taank, and Brynn Whitfield will also all be returning for season 15.

Here’s what you need to know:

Rumors That Jenna Lyons Was Quitting RHONY Circulated After She Skipped BravoCon

Lyons was a fairly big personality on the first season of the rebooted RHONY cast and many felt like she was an essential part of the cast.

However, when she skipped out on BravoCon 2023 in Las Vegas in October, many fans assumed that she wouldn’t return after the season 14 finale. Lyons’ reason for being the only member of the season 14 cast that didn’t attend the convention seemed to make her departure even more evident.

“I had some things to do,” she told ET.

“I said some really important things to do, like twiddle my thumbs. No, I had an event and I had some other things that I had to do that were personal. And I’m preparing for — I have to leave tonight, I have to be on a flight so I just couldn’t. It didn’t work out,” she added.

Andy Cohen Really Wanted Jenna Lyons on RHONY

When it came to recasting the “Real Housewives of New York,” executive producer Andy Cohen knew that he wanted Lyons to be in the mix.

On a May 2023 episode of the “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast, Cohen explained, that “there were certain women of color that were just super important to the franchise, it was so meaningful to us to get them in, so those were times that I was in the meetings with people and calling them and saying, ‘what can we do’?”

He also admitted that he really went out of his way to get Lyons to sign on.

“Usually I don’t get personally involved. There are some. Jenna Lyons, I got personally involved with,” he told podcast host Amanda Hirsch.

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