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Dorinda Medley Dishes on Her Friendships With Her Former ‘RHONY’ Costars After Leaving the Show (Exclusive)

Nothing but love! Dorinda Medley may no longer be on The Real Housewives of New York City, but she still keeps in touch with some of her former costars.

Related: Costars Reunited!

When Medley joined Us Weekly for a virtual interview, she reflected on her RHONY friendships while breaking down her past Instagram posts. Kicking things off, she looked back on a cute photo she took with current cast member Leah McSweeney when they caught up over lunch.

“I try to be very respectful when the girls are filming because, you know, it’s very hard when you’re in that world. It is, like, going off and doing your thing and you always know you’re going to see them again,” the 56-year-old entrepreneur told Us while promoting her new Nutrisystem partnership. “I’ll touch base with Luann [de Lesseps] and touch base with Sonja [Morgan], but at the end of the day, you don’t want to be intrusive to the process. I know myself, when you’re in it, it’s sometimes hard to jump. But [Leah] called the other day and said, ‘I’m going to be on the Upper East Side. Would you love to meet for lunch?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to.’ And we met. We went to one of my favorite places.”

Medley then went on to praise her “girl” and former NYC Housewife Bethenny Frankel while looking back on a photo of the pair out in the Big Apple together.

Dorinda Medley Dishes Friendships With Former RHONY Costars
Dorinda Medley, Leah McSweeney and Bethenny Frankel. Shutterstock; Anne Wermiel/NY Post/MEGA; CraSH/imageSPACE/Shutterstock

“I love Bethenny. Bethenny is a powerhouse,” she gushed. “She’s an endless learning curve that girl, and you could just listen to her forever. She’s a unique character, strong. What a businesswoman. I admire her.”

Related: Former ‘RHONY’ Stars: Where Are They Now?

She continued, “You kinda have to peel an onion to become close to someone. It’s a process and we’ve gone through the process. We just really liked each other. I really admire her. We’re very dear friends. We’re very close. I love Bethenny. She is a character — I love a good character. [A] badass, that girl.”

The Massachusetts native added that she and Frankel, 50, could “talk about dirty laundry for hours.”

Medley announced her departure from the Bravo hit in August 2020 after six seasons. That October, she claimed that her RHONY exit was not her decision.

“I was ready to go back. I was excited about going back. I was planning on going back, and I thought I would have a great year,” she said on Frankel’s “Just B” podcast. “I wasn’t given that option.”

Related: Every Bravo Star Who Quit or Was Fired in 2020

Instead of focusing on her time on RHONY, Medley has been looking ahead at her partnership with Nutrisystem.

“Sometimes it’s very hard when you’re trying to do a diet to get your head around it. This is easy,” the Make It Nice author said of the program. “It’s color-coded. … It’s yellow for breakfast, blue for lunch, red for dinner. It’s, like, the granules of diets where you don’t have to think about it. They personalize it for you. It shows up at your door, which for me was everything.”

To see more of Medley’s Instagram breakdown, check out Us Weekly’s exclusive video above!

With reporting by Christina Garibaldi

Listen to Ramona Singer tell Us Weekly editors what it was like filming season 13 of ROHNY during COVID-19.

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