Last night, Real Housewives of New York aired one of the darkest, most explosive season finales we’ve ever seen after a rather dull season. With the episode featuring some shocking allegations, proven by the time the show ended to be untrue, it was a stark reminder of why certain behaviour must not be tolerated, but rather checked and called out immediately. Furthermore, it shows firsthand the implications that one person’s deceit can have on others.
During the group trip to Puerto Rico, things were especially tense between Ubah and Brynn. The two were in conflict for the duration of the trip, with Brynn picking at everything Ubah was doing, and Ubah firing back at the height of their beef, insinuating that Brynn may have slept with someone to get on the show. This set Brynn off and caused most of the women to rally behind her, saying it’s not right for Ubah to slut-shame her.
Brynn’s frustration over Ubah’s claim hit an all-time high in an emotional scene where she broke down and tearfully expressed her frustration at the assumption she slept her way to the top, saying:
“Why can’t a Black woman make money? Why can’t a Black woman be successful?”, a rare occasion where she identifies as Black.
The group, particularly Racquel, who is Afro-Latina, related to the frustration of having her success as an attractive and multi-racial woman be undermined, consoled her and let her know that not everyone was questioning the means of Brynn’s success. Then, the group breaks into two, with Erin and Sai going to Ubah’s room and telling her to smooth things over with Brynn, while Jessel, Racquel and Jenna stay with Brynn where she makes her shocking allegation.
“I’m dealing with sh-t dude. I’m in support groups about sexual assault…I’m in support groups trying to deal with sh-t that happened to me. You wanna go there? And Ubah knows this. Before Bravocon, I f-cking called Ubah and I was like, you know, I was raped and I’m still dealing with this sh-t.”
The women in the room were blown away by Brynn’s revelation and appear overcome by emotion in their confessionals immediately following this scene. Racquel and Jenna expressed disappointment in Ubah for levying this kind of attack against Brynn knowing her trauma. They appear to be in disbelief that she would even insinuate such a thing despite having that knowledge.
When the cameras go down, Jessel goes to Ubah’s room and informs her of what Brynn said, and all hell breaks loose.
“May Allah strike me down and kill my first born,” Racquel recalls Ubah saying to her and Jenna after finding out what Brynn alleged. This was a loaded statement to make as she is actively and unsuccessfully trying to conceive with her partner, Oliver, and requires surgery for fibroids.
After the fiery confrontation between Ubah and Brynn, producers decide to send Ubah to a hotel for the night, and Jessel goes with her. This leaves the rest of the women together, where Brynn recounts the story again, and Sai asks her plainly:
“Brynn, did Ubah know?”
And she responds, “Come to think of it, maybe she didn’t clock it.”
The women are immediately put off by Brynn’s casual walkback of her damning remarks and make it clear that while they do not doubt that she was assaulted, they have no reason to believe that Ubah knew.
“To be completely clear, I am not doubting her experience. But her story is not lining up,” Racquel said. “I checked out within a couple of minutes…because I realized she was lying.”
I last wrote about Brynn’s problematic race-baiting in October, when she tried to silence Ubah’s self-defence against her verbal attacks by reminding her that Ubah would be portrayed as an “angry Black woman”, while she would be protected by her fair skin and white passing features. But in this case, Brynn’s behaviour goes so much further than just being about problematic race-baiting and more about an inherent need to be seen as a victim, and the lengths she will go to hold onto that perception, dragging down not only other victims of sexual assault, but women like Ubah in the process.
In my last piece, I addressed some of the double standards that Brynn perpetuates, and we saw that again in this episode. Fans pointed out that she went from mocking the fact that Ubah modelled for Dress Barn and Talbots to asking why a Black woman can’t make money or be successful. Who cares what company Ubah models for if that’s how she’s making money?
When Brynn referred to herself as a Black woman in that conversation, it was made clear how much of a master manipulator she truly is. She knows when to lean on her Blackness, and it’s particularly in situations where she needs to solicit sympathy. That is one of the very first times I have ever heard her identify as Black, because she’s always made it a point to emphasize that she is biracial.
While I cannot argue with how Brynn chooses to identify and do agree that whether you look Black or not, if it’s in your ethnicity, it’s yours to claim, I can, as a fellow mixed person myself, fundamentally disagree with the idea that she suffers the same marginalization as someone who looks like Ubah might.
As I’ve written in the past, not only is Brynn white-passing, but she makes a conscious effort to maintain that look, and I think it’s because she has long benefitted from the privilege that comes with it – the kind of privilege that makes her victimhood look more believable, particularly when she is making claims like the ones she did in this episode, oblivious to their potential impact.
But we know what the impact might be from Ubah’s visceral reaction, which included vomiting from the stress of being the target of such a heinous accusation, likely worrying that this allegation could affect everything from her reputation to her relationships to her livelihood.
With that in mind, I can’t say I can see a difference between Brynn and Amy Cooper, who went viral in 2020 for calling the police on a Black man bird-watching in Central Park. I see no difference between Brynn and Michelle Bishop, who very recently accused a Black real estate developer of following her while she walked through her affluent Ohio neighbourhood in which he lived, too. And the reason I see no difference is because the M.O. for women like Brynn, Amy and Michelle is to lean on the protection their whiteness grants them in interactions with people, whether it be the police or in this case, reality TV fans.
The other similarity in all three of these cases is the role that cameras play in holding people accountable. Had Christian Cooper, the target of Amy’s accusation in Central Park that day, not been videotaping the entire thing, it’s not unlikely that the police would’ve sided with her, which was why she continued to say his race to the 911 operator while making the initial call.
In Michelle’s case, had the Ring camera on Damichael Jenkins’ own home not been in operation, the video would have never gone viral on social media, serving as proof that a white woman can be at the doorstep of a Black man, questioning him about whether he lives there and lying about being followed when all he was trying to do was go home.
And though in Brynn’s case, cameras were not rolling when she admitted that maybe Ubah didn’t know she had been assaulted, they were rolling every other time she lied, every other time she leveraged her privilege, and every other time she said anything that pushed the women to ask the questions they did which ultimately revealed the truth.
But let’s think about what would’ve happened if Brynn did not ultimately confess to, yet again, “embellishing”, though I feel like this particular scenario calls for a much more solemn word. The women were quick to believe her when she stated that Ubah knew. Racquel said she ‘couldn’t even look’ at Ubah in the moments after Brynn made her claim. This is what privilege looks like. Being believed, with ease.
At the end of the episode, we get to see the women reunite just days after this incredibly complex ordeal to get the season opener shot. And the women, with the exception of Ubah, were still incredibly warm and inviting to Brynn. So while it was devastating to witness, seeing the women navigate this situation without wavering in their belief of Brynn’s experience, makes me hopeful that we’re moving the needle in getting support to those who need it most.
