On the September 24 episode of the Real Housewives of New York, emotions were all over the place between Ubah Hassan and Erin Lichy. After Erin told her to “stop saying my name,” Ubah went toe to toe with Erin, who was wearing sunglasses. Not wanting to talk to Erin’s dark glasses, Ubah snatched them off her face. Ubah likes to see your eyes when you’re talking to her.
When Erin asked for the glasses back, Ubah said no. She would keep them for 45 minutes, just like Erin did with Ubah’s phone the previous night as “payback” for Ubah’s pushing her in the pool.
“I mean, [Ubah] is my friend,” Erin said in a confessional. “This is the first conflict I’ve ever had with her, and it’s the worst conflict I’ve ever had in my life. Like, I have no idea what’s going on with her, and I didn’t even know she had this side.” Really, Erin? The worst conflict of your life? Erin’s had a sheltered life.
Erin goes into a snit
Once the 45 minutes expired, rather than accepting the glasses back from Ubah. Erin had to take the pissiness a little farther. “They need to touch someone else’s hands before they come back to me,” she said like Ubah has cooties or something.
Looking at Ubah, she said, “Instead of getting so mad, just talk to me like a normal friend.” That would require you to listen, Erin, which you’ve shown you’re not so good at.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Ubah responded. “I’m not your kid.”
Erin added that Ubah once called her a spoiled brat. “You are,” Ubah agreed.
But when Ubah mentioned that Erin called Brynn Whitfield a “social climber,” Erin felt attacked. “I’m going back to the villa,” she says. “Bye!” And Jenna Lyons went with her.
But they doubled back and sat on the other side of the bar from Ubah and the rest, where Erin pouted. “I really have no respect for any of them anymore,” she told Jenna.
Later over lunch, Jessel Taank pointed out how Erin often “talked sh*t” about each housewife and recalled how she singled out Jenna and claimed she chose to fly early in order to avoid economy class.
“Now that everything’s coming to the surface, I’m starting to realize who’s driving all this stuff?” Jessel said in a confessional interview. “Enough is enough.”
Erin and Ubah came to odds again when Ubah asked why she was “putting a fork in my ass” and messing with her. Needing to “get off this rollercoaster,” Erin left and returned to the house.
Erin breaks down
“I literally cannot be near her,” the real estate broker told Sai. “The things that she said about me? She will not stop talking about me.”
After Erin left, the others confronted Ubah over her “negativity.” But Ubah called them out for buying into the stereotype. “I am so done with this narrative [that] Black women are angry,” she said. “We are passionate and we don’t take any sh*t and we’re not fake.”
“Ubah’s right,” Sai said in a confesssional. “When Black women get upset, people take it upon themselves to think that it’s this ‘angry Black woman’ mentality when you’re just showing emotion just like every other woman … However, I just don’t think it plays out in this situation.”
Though they eventually talked things out, I’m not sure Erin really ever understood why the confiscation of her phone triggered the Ubah Hot founder.
Ubah’s family escaped war-torn Somalia. They don’t take their safety for granted, as most Americans do. Ubah has an agreement with her family that wherever she is, she’ll check in and let them know she’s safe. When Ubah couldn’t find her phone she knew her family would worry about her. Erin just never seemed to understand that or apologize for the distress she caused her friend.
No accountability
“There’s no accountability,” observed Brynn. “She doesn’t hold herself accountable, [and] I know we don’t hold her accountable.”
As Ubah denied claims that she was inciting hate, Erin screamed, “Shut up! Shut your f***ing mouth! You are such a bitch!”
“No, you are a bitch!” Ubah countered. She then noted that each of the ladies had a reason to be mad at her for talking behind their backs.
When Brynn asked Erin why she was having such a strong reaction to Ubah’s claims, she argued she had gone “too far” and Ubah was “abusing her.”
“You’re pushing me to the ground,” Erin said, bursting into tears. “What do you want from me? … I took your phone as a joke. You tried to get everyone against me … It’s enough.”
The thing I found really disturbing is that Erin only saw her own side and refused to acknowledge Ubah’s feelings. She felt victimized, when all she really needed to do was to apologize to her friend for her part in the argument. Ubah wasn’t blameless, but neither was she totally at fault.
TELL US – DO YOU THINK ERIN SHOULD HAVE APOLOGIZED TO UBAH FOR TAKING HER PHONE? DO YOU THINK THEY WERE BOTH AT FAULT?
