An accidental housewife! Fans of The Real Housewives of New York City may have noticed a new face popping up during season 12 of the show, and it turns out, Elyse Slaine, is just as surprised as everyone else.
“This whole thing happened by accident. I never auditioned to be on the show,” Slaine says on the new episode of Us Weekly’s “Getting Real with the Housewives” podcast. “I was just catching up with Ramona [Singer] and the two girls she was filming with in the first episode. The producers put a microphone on me and said, ‘Get in there,’ so I did. They liked the dynamic, so they invited me back again. They just sort of kept inviting me, so I just sort of kept showing up whenever I could. Then eventually, they gave me a contract.”
However, Slaine’s history with the housewives runs deep. The cryptocurrency trader is actually the reason “for the dynamic duo” of original ‘RHONY’ stars Bethenny Frankel and Jill Zarin.
“I thought that they would enjoy knowing one another,” Slaine tells Us. “I was having dinner with my then-husband and Jill, 56, and Bobby [Zarin] and I just invited Bethenny to come along because I thought, ‘Oh, they would really like one another,’ and I love connecting people.”
Despite “drifting apart years ago” with Frankel, 49, the reality star admits that she still has “tremendous respect” for the Bravo personality. She explained, “If we see each other, we’re certainly very friendly to one another. But from what I hear, Bethenny’s always great, right? Regardless of the fact that we lost touch with one another, we had a falling out. It was really over nothing.”
As for Zarin, the two “mended fences” after not speaking for quite some time, but after the death of her husband in 2018, the two reconnected.
“A few weeks after Bobby died, we went on a group trip with a bunch of friends to Morocco and we’ve been in touch since,” Slaine told Us. “We’ve had dinner together with another mutual friend. We talk on the phone.”
Slaine is also a big fan of Zarin’s current boyfriend, Gary Brody, who she calls a “sweetheart.” She explained, “It’s funny because after Bobby passed, I thought, ‘Oh my God. Poor, Jill. Will she ever find another guy as smitten with her as Bobby?’ And then comes Gary who looks at her like she’s his long-lost puppy.”
The Real Housewives of New York City airs on Bravo Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.