Fans of the old Real Housewives of New York City love hearing from Jill Zarin. Of course, she’s an OG from the show and was a mainstay from 2008 until 2011.
As fans will recall, her husband, Bobby Zarin, died after Jill was no longer a part of RHONY. However, cameras were present to film parts of his funeral. Some time ago, Jill went on Bethenny Frankel’s ReWives podcast and revealed that she had no idea the RHONY cameras were planning to film. Now, she’s speaking up again about her side of the story.
Recently, Andy Cohen responded at BravoCon and said there was no way the RHONY production would film without consent at Bobby’s funeral.
He said, “The truth is, we were invited. We have emails inviting us, and yes, everyone knew we were there. We got a thank you from Jill saying, ‘Wow, you paid such a great tribute to Bobby on the show, that meant so much.”
A BravoCon attendee in the audience asked for the emails that showed the RHONY cast was invited, to which Andy responded by saying he had ‘moved on.’
Jill is now speaking to Reality Tea, saying, “Please ask Andy for the signed filming releases of me and the people they did not blur out. My stepchildren, friends Sarah and Amelia. As Jeff Lewis said, ‘They would never do it.’”
It seems the former RHONY star may have been confused about what Jeff, who was on the panel with Andy, meant. In saying “they would never do it,” Jeff was saying that the RHONY cameras would never show up to film without permission.
Jill continued by saying, “I have so many amazing projects in [the] works, I have to look forward. I know the truth, and so do the 1,000 people at his funeral. I would never use Bobby’s funeral as a place to talk to Bethenny on camera. Never. Ever.”
She added, “They [the emails] don’t exist. An email inviting them to cover Bobby’s funeral was sent by someone close to me thinking it would be a nice tribute; the production company said no, then showed up and crashed the funeral sending Bethenny for what? A confrontation? If I saw Bravo cameras I would not have spoken to her … wrong place, wrong time. It’s six years and no release.”
Going back to Bethenny’s podcast with Jill, the RHONY OG claims she had no idea Bethenny was wearing a microphone. She states that she would not have spoken to her if she knew there was a mic present.
@ivorytowerboilerroom
Jill Zarin Tells the Truth about Bobby’s Funeral! #jillzarin #bethennyfrankel #rhony #rhonyc #rhonylegacy
♬ original sound – IvoryTowerBoilerRoom
It’s hard to know who to believe. However, it’s even more unbelievable that a major production like RHONY would show up to a former cast member’s funeral without having the proper permission to do so. Unfortunately, Jill will not be a part of the upcoming Ultimate Girls Trip RHONY Legacy show on Peacock.