Drama in the Big Apple! Ramona Singer and Luann de Lesseps weighed in on Leah McSweeney and Heather Thomson’s fight on the upcoming season of The Real Housewives of New York City.
Season 13 doesn’t begin airing until Tuesday, May 4, but Bravo has already teased a blowout between full-time Housewife Leah, 38, and Heather, 51, who returns for a few episodes this year after stepping back from the show in season 7. Ramona, 64, exclusively told Us Weekly that she and Luann, 55, invited Heather to lunch “before we even started filming” and told her that she should join the ladies on a trip to the Hamptons.
“Unfortunately, she and Leah clashed [when she arrived],” Ramona explained. “Maybe Leah was threatened by the longtime friendship that both Luann and I had with Heather. I don’t know. Well, there’s other things she was upset about that you’ll see. And they really clashed.”
The Life on the Ramona Coaster author admitted she was “shocked” at how things played out because Leah and Heather had only “briefly” met at Dorinda Medley’s house in the Berkshires one year prior.
“I don’t like to be under Leah’s wrath it’s, like, woo! So, I did not come to Heather’s defense,” Ramona added. “I just ran the other way, saying, ‘Thank God it’s not me.’”
Luann, on the other hand, wasn’t as surprised by the confrontation between her two pals.
“I wasn’t that shocked because I feel like they’re two big personalities,” she exclusively told Us. “I think that, you know, the conflict was real. You’re going to see how that plays out.”
As for where her friendship stands with Heather since her show exit in 2015, Luann noted that they haven’t really been in touch.
“We don’t see each other that often because, you know, we just kind of have different lifestyles,” the actress said. “Her children are still, like, teenagers [while] mine are out of the house and grown. She lives in the Berkshires [and] I’m in the Hamptons. It’s because of really location and different phases of one’s life.”
Us broke the news in March that Heather stopped filming the upcoming season of RHONY after a “messy” exchange with Leah, who joined the cast during season 12.
“Shortly after she arrived, Leah and Heather butt heads. Heather could see Leah was acting up for the cameras and using behavior she considered demeaning and exploitative and frankly, crossed a line,” a source exclusively told Us at the time. “Heather wanted no part of Leah so after she left that weekend Heather had no interest in continuing the season at all and stopped filming.”
The Married to the Mob CEO seemingly addressed her feud with Heather in a since-deleted Instagram Story the same month.
“I don’t like women who slut shame other women,” she wrote. “Act morally superior to other women. Plastic surgery shame other women. Gossip about other women doing drugs when you know damn well they’ve done drugs also. And lastly I don’t like when white women call black women ‘articulate’. Especially while acting like the queen of wokeness.”
Earlier this month, Heather spoke out about not seeing eye-to-eye with Leah during an appearance on the “Friends of Dorothy” podcast.
“I get assaulted this season,” she claimed, hinting that it was the designer who was coming for her. “People were interested in putting me down, dragging me down and showing me who is the queen bee. It’s the new girl who was intimidated and wanted to show who’s the queen bee.”
Season 13 of The Real Housewives of New York City premieres on Bravo Tuesday, May 4 at 9 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
