Cynthia Bailey Slams Friend Jill Zarin’s “Ignorant” Super Bowl Rant

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Cynthia Bailey reacted to Jill Zarin‘s racist Super Bowl rant on a recent episode of her shared podcast with Crystal Kung-Minkoff.

As an old clip from The Real Housewives of New York City featured Jill, 62, admitting to being jealous of those who speak multiple languages, Cynthia, 58, formerly of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, labeled Jill’s comments “insensitive” and “ignorant” as she admitted to being “disappointed” by her longtime friend.

“It’s not a secret that I’m friends with Jill Zarin. I’ve known Jill for years, from the time I even started my housewife journey. She was one of the first people to reach out to me. And we’ve been friends for a long time. She’s always been very supportive. I know her parents. I know [her daughter, Ally Shapiro]. I know the whole thing. We are friends,” Cynthia began on the February 16 episode of Humble Brag, via No Chaser TV on X, noting that she didn’t want to “make this about us, because at the end of the day, it’s not about us.”

“For me, it was just really hard to watch someone that I care about say such hurtful, insensitive, ignorant, is a word that comes to mind for sure, things about people, about a culture,” she continued. “It just felt so narrow, her view, about what she was speaking on, and I think that’s one of the things that really disappointed me.”

Although Cynthia acknowledged that everyone makes mistakes, as Jill noted after being fired from E!’s The Golden Life, she added that we also have to “hold ourselves accountable.”

“At the end of the day, I personally have never experienced any kind of racism from Jill personally, because if I did, I wouldn’t be her friend for so many years, obviously, but at the same time, I felt the message was very clear, the Super Bowl message, with Bad Bunny. It was all about unity, inclusion,” she shared. “This is about the world. All of those beautiful flags represented that. And for all of that to go over her head, I think that concerned me the most, was the fact that she actually didn’t see anything wrong with making that kind of public statement, which would go on to hurt and disrespect so many people.”

According to Cynthia, she hasn’t spoken to Jill since her rant about the Super Bowl Halftime show, in which the RHONY alum complained about the lack of white people and suggested the message was an “ICE thing,” was shared.

“I have not. No, I have not. Because it hits differently when it’s someone you know, and it’s someone that you have a relationship with,” she explained.

Meanwhile, on Reddit, after a user shared a clip featuring Jill having a meal with Alex McCord, 52, Luann de Lesseps, 60, and Bethenny Frankel, 55, on a past season of RHONY, fans weighed in on her comment about being jealous of those who are multilingual.

“I felt a little left out with the language thing, because when people start speaking another language, I’m jealous. I can barely speak English,” Jill had said to her castmates.

In response, one person said, “Exactly. She’s jealous,” and another fan suggested Jill, who complained that she didn’t understand Bad Bunny, take the initiative and learn another language.

“They didn’t buy the skill, they learned it. I’m learning Spanish now. You’re rich and jobless, go to school and learn another language!” they wrote.

“It just shows how ignorant and uncultured she is. Even though she fancies herself as rich and well traveled,” someone else stated.

And a third added, “She had so much wealth and opportunities, she could have easily chosen to educate herself or learn something new but instead she chose the shallow life of lunches, designer handbags and ignorance.”

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The Golden Life is expected to go into production sometime early this year with Dorinda Medley, 61, Ramona Singer, 69, Sonja Morgan, 62, Luann de Lesseps, 60, and Kelly Bensimon, 57.