New York is a famously changeful city: Buildings get demolished and reconstructed with Lego-like glee, once-hot restaurants are downgraded to “so 2006” status at whiplash speed (sorry, Catch), and, yes, even its reality TV personalities are traded in for newer, shinier models.
Such was the case with The Real Housewives Of New York City, one of Bravo’s longest-running franchises. Since 2008, the Manhattan-based series has made veritable celebrities—all toaster-oven lines, live cabaret tours and $100-million-dollar cocktail brands—out of its veteran cast members, including Luann de Lesseps, Sonja Morgan, Ramona Singer, Bethenney Frankel, and Dorinda Medley. (The latter two have not been involved with RHONY for several seasons: Frankel left in 2019 of her own accord; Medley a year later, seemingly less so.)
Together, with rotating seasonal fillers—an Aviva Frescher here, a Kristen Taekman there—the New York vets have given the Housewives brand some of its most iconic and meme-worthy moments: prosthetic leg throws, “I Made It Nice!” meltdowns, bug-eyed runway walks, all of Scary Island. But that dramatic legacy couldn’t save them from the city’s changefulness: Following a tense, tepidly received 13th season in which younger, more progressive characters (Leah Sweeney, Ebony K. Williams) butted against the old guard, Bravo producers cleaned house for the season 14 cast, the first in the show’s 15-year history to not feature the O.G. NYC housewife, Ramona Singer.
De Lesseps and Morgan have been relocated to a Simple Life-meets-Schitt’s Creek-esque spinoff, Luann & Sonja: Welcome To Crappie Lake. And they’ll be joined by four other franchise rejects—Medley, Singer, Takeman, and Kelly Killoren Bensimon—who will next be seen in a “RHONY Legacy” season of The Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip this December.
But the rebooted flagship, which premiered on Bravo on July 16, is now a collection of fresh faces, foraying graciously deeper into racial diversity (four of the six principal players are women of color), proud queerness (we finally got our first openly gay Housewife) and—gasp!—Brooklyn (justice for Alex McCord). But the reality rules still apply: Not all Housewives are created equal. Here’s how the RHONY rookies stack up so far in terms of reality-star juice.