Jessel Taank’s Real Housewives of New York City costars couldn’t stop talking about her husband’s mileage run to Vietnam, but he has no regrets — and he had a blast.
“I got a few good sandwiches,” Pavit Randhawa exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, October 17. “I ate an absurd amount of food. I think I was there for 30 hours and I had a lot of food.”
Jessel and Pavit’s costars were perplexed by the idea of flying solo to Vietnam to rack up frequent flier miles, but Jessel said it’s not unusual for Pavit to travel alone. “He went to Panama by himself too,” she told Us. “He travels a lot by himself.”
She went on to say that she feels like her costars’ confusion highlights their own “insecurity” rather than any real problems in her marriage. “If the first thing that goes to people’s minds is, ‘Oh, well, there’s something shady going on,’ it’s weird,” she said. “I feel like in society that’s what we’re almost programmed to assume, which is so disappointing.”
Some of Jessel’s castmates insinuated that Pavit was traveling alone to cheat on his wife with sex workers, but he told Us he was offended by those remarks.
“I’ve never in my life heard of people going to Vietnam for sexual tourism,” he said. “Associating any South Asian country for that is like, ‘OK, that’s weird.’ Vietnam is probably one of the most beautiful countries. The food’s amazing. We’ve been there a couple times. … It’s a beautiful country. The people are amazing. So to associate that with this is really weird.”
Jessel, for her part, noted that she and Pavit “live a very unstructured life” together.
“We are two individuals that are married, but I am happily doing my stuff and he is very happily doing his stuff,” she explained. “If he wants to do something, I will never hold him back, because that’s when I think you start seeing friction in relationships, is when you start being controlling or stifling his character, his personality or his passion to travel and do stuff. So, I’ve always been very supportive and vice versa. If I’m like, ‘I need to go on a girls trip,’ he might give me some trouble for five minutes, but at the end of the day, I’m going to do what I want to do.”
Pavit went on to say that Jessel often “pushes” him out of the house to go on boys trips — which she confirmed. “Let me tell you, it’s a vacation,” Jessel joked. “It’s a great downtime for both of us.”
Part 1 of The Real Housewives of New York City reunion airs on Bravo Sunday, October 22, at 9 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
