A few months after her firing from Real Housewives of New York, legendary reality villainess Jill Zarin is still unable to let it go!
Speaking to Access Atlanta while promoting Skweeze Couture (is anyone buying that?), the formidable former Housewife was refreshingly candid, which means she basically put her foot in her mouth and said things that are bound to get the public all riled up!
Jill admits she would have “liked to stay on the show” for the opportunity and income it provided, but she isn’t necessarily sad it ended! “Now that I’m off the show, I can see my reputation getting better,” she insists. “Things improved season four after it was damaged season three. People are starting to realize, watching other reality shows, that maybe they were too harsh on me.” We are? Well perhaps, in light of former bestie and co-star Bethenny Frankel’s latest issues with the media some fans may be reconsidering their opinions of Jill and the demise of her friendship with Bethenny.
About that feud… Jill was eager to address that what we saw on TV was not necessarily how it played out in real life. Cue the Producer Manipulation accusation employed by all reality stars in times of strife! Jill insists that the time Bethenny called her to discuss their imploding friendship and Jill put her on speaker phone while her new BFF, LuAnn de Lesseps was sitting next to her to over-hear everything wasn’t to be mean and catty, but to accommodate the producers! Apparently, Jill didn’t realize Bethenny also had a camera crew with her at that same time. Oops. Regardless, that doesn’t redeem all the catty comments!
Jill cites another incident where she put former cast-mate Ramona Singer on speakerphone only for Ramona to make rude comments about LuAnn while LuAnn was sitting right there!
Despite the pain it caused her and the loss of her friendship with Bethenny, Jill (who once said she thought the feud was manufactured for TV drama purposes) is thankful for her experiences on RHONY. “Four years was much longer than I ever thought the show would last,” she reveals. “I’m grateful. And the show lives on. Plus, repeats are now being rolled out in other countries so I get emails all over the world asking me if I’m still best friends with Bethenny.” I wonder if she tells them to Google IHJZ!?
Jill claims she sensed her time was coming to an end with Bravo and was prepared and expressed her disappointment over the reactions of other fired Housewives, namely Alex McCord and Simon van Kempen who asserted Jill was responsible for Alex’s termination! Alex is quoted as saying Jill has “been trying to get me off the show for a number of years. She succeeded…She’s a manipulator and she’s very good at feeding information to her own end.”
“I was disappointed by what they said,” Jill reflected. “It hurt my feelings. For good or bad, we made great television. We had fun together. Season four, I didn’t have one fight with Alex. We got along in Morocco. Don’t go after me. Go after another housewife that did something to you, not me.”
“After we were let go that Saturday night, I reached out to all the girls, including Alex and Simon. I said if you need me for anything, I get booked for appearances and if they need other people, I can suggest you. Now I don’t want to work with them,” Jill remarks. “I was trying to be nice.”
Jill assures us, once again, she is not finished with reality TV! Apparently her Bravo contract “limited her ability to make appearances on shows on rival networks”, but since the “The Golden Child” Bethenny was able to appear on the horrible Skating With The Stars, Jill believes she’ll be able to go to another network, no problem. In fact, she is “in talks” to do a new show though nothing is set in stone just yet. I seriously hope it has nothing to do with Patti Stanger’s proposed “Glamazons”!
“I think people are going to miss me,” Jill believes, confident that once Season 5 premieres without her everyone is going to wish she was still included in the cast. I wouldn’t bet too much money on that one, Jill!
In other Jill news, the product she is desperately hawking, Skweeze Couture, is on the market and Jill insists she knows what she’s doing! “It’s not like I’m a celebrity who woke up and said, ‘Oh, let me do a line of this or that.’ What I’m doing makes sense based on what I already know. I feel like I’m filling a void.” Apparently, lots of women need girdles!
Apparently. Since the NY Daily News reviewed Skweeze (and two other shapewear companies, although not Skinnygirl Shapewear) and found that while it definitely sucks in your fat, you might need “the Jaws of Life” to remove it! When asked if Skweeze was supposed to be so um… restricting, Jill replied: “I didn’t make it to be comfortable, I made it to work!” Well the reviews are in and it works, it’s just about the most uncomfortable garment ever manufactured, but “it lives up to its name!”
[Photo Credit: PNP/ WENN.com]
THOUGHTS ON JILL’S INTERVIEW? ARE YOU SURPRISED SHE IS STILL TALKING ABOUT GETTING FIRED? DO YOU THINK HER SPEAKER PHONE GAFF WAS INTENTIONAL OR AT THE BEHEST OF THE PRODUCERS? WOULD YOU TRY SKWEEZE AFTER READING THE REVIEW?
