Real Housewives of New York City fans are calling for a cast member to be fired from the series over the show’s ‘dark’ finale, which involved a rape storyline.
Brynn Whitfield, 39, was accused of ‘weaponizing’ a past incident of sexual assault against co-star Ubah Hassan, 41, after the pair got into a fight during an all-cast trip to Puerto Rico.
Speaking to Rolling Stone after the finale aired, Brynn confirmed that she hasn’t quit the hit Bravo series and that she’s already managed to make amends with some of her castmates.
The drama started when Brynn and Ubah started exchanging insults following a disastrous cast dinner, which ended with Ubah accusing Brynn of sleeping with somebody to get hired on RHONY.
As tensions continued to rise, Brynn told some of her other castmates that she had been raped in the past and that Ubah was aware of it, and therefore shouldn’t have accused her of sleeping with somebody to get a job.
‘I’m in support groups trying to deal with s**t that happened to me. You want to go there? And Ubah knows this. Ubah knows this,’ she told her stunned castmates.
‘Before Bravocon, I f***ing called Ubah and was like, “You know, I was f***ing raped and I’m still dealing with this s**t.” Ubah knows this s**t,’ she continued.
‘So no, I don’t need random f***ing six-foot petulant toddlers being like, “She sucks d**k for work.”
Brynn Whitfield (pictured) has broken her silence following Tuesday’s explosive Real Housewives of New York City finale
‘It’s not just an insult. It’s because of the fact I’m still dealing with something so I don’t want any f***ing low blows that aren’t true, let alone about something that is still something where I wake up in the middle of the night that I can’t breathe over.’
The women rallied around Brynn to support her, but the mood soon changed when Jessel Tank confronted Ubah over the incident – and Ubah denied ever knowing that Brynn had been assaulted.
A furious Ubah then confronted Brynn, saying, ‘Brynn! You said on camera you were raped? And I knew about it?’
A producer then came between the women, with a furious Ubah snapping, ‘This b***h! Are you kidding me?’
She continued to scream, ‘This b***h is lying! You son of a b***h. You f***ing psycho b***h.’
The rest of the women quickly decided that Ubah was telling the truth, and that Brynn may have twisted the situation to cause drama and to make the Somalian model look bad.
Producers separated the two women and the cameras went down for the night.
And then according to Erin Lichy, Sai De Silva, Racquel Chevremont, and Jenna Lyons, Brynn then came into their room and admitted that ‘maybe’ Ubah wasn’t aware of her past assault after all.
Brynn, 39, was accused of ‘weaponizing’ a past incident of sexual assault against her co-star Ubah Hassan, 41, after the pair got into a fight during an all-cast trip to Puerto Rico
Ubah was accused of knowing that Brynn had been raped in the past and attacking her over her sexuality, but Ubah denied ever knowing about Brynn’s tragic past
A furious Ubah confronted Brynn, her castmates and production, saying, ‘Brynn! You said on camera you were raped? And I knew about it?’
Brynn later admitted that ‘maybe’ Ubah hadn’t been aware of her past assault
‘I realized [Brynn] was lying,’ Racquel later told producers, while Erin said, ‘I will bet my life on the fact that Ubah did not know.’
The episode drew a strong reaction on social media, with many viewers calling it ‘too dark’ and pushing for Brynn to be sacked from the series.
‘Brynn is a dark human. The way she weaponizes the most vulnerable things a person can experience strategically and methodically is scary. Not fun. Not good TV either,’ one viewer posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.
‘Honestly, #RHONY went from boring to meh to dark so quickly. We need to just pause, take a moment, and come back like way later or something,’ posted another.
‘Brynn needs to pack it up. This was so dark and gross. To weaponize your trauma in this way is sick #RHONY,’ wrote a third.
A fourth wrote, ‘The #RHONY finale is truly unfathomable and NOT in a good way. Yes, this show finally gave us something to work with, but it’s so unspeakably dark it’s hard to imagine them moving forward at ALL.’
Brynn spoke to Rolling Stone following the finale and responded to her castmates for accusing her of intentionally ‘lying’ about Ubah knowing about her assault.
‘That was shocking. You’re telling me that in the three minutes from when I’m called horrible names [by Ubah] and I’m obviously upset that I somehow devised a plan?’ she said.
‘It’s disgusting that I’m talking about two things that I would hope that no woman or person would have to experience — suicide and sexual assault — and everyone’s like, “Brynn, we feel taken advantage of.” Maybe don’t use those words to describe the situation. I just feel like I wasn’t shown much [respect],’ she continued.
‘These are difficult, serious things we’re talking about. That’s how it felt for me the whole season, like I was always being attacked. I would go into filming a lot of the time and I would feel dread and despair. I was just like, every single thing is going to turn into something. It was weird energy from the very first scene.’
Brynn also said that she was able to make amends with Jenna, Erin, and Racquel at the reunion, and that she was even confident that she could repair her friendship with Ubah.
She also shut down rumors that she was quitting the series, but admitted that she didn’t know if she’d be asked back for another season or not.
Furious viewers slammed the series, claiming that it’s gone too ‘dark’
Viewers flocked to social media to demand that Brynn be fired from the long-running show
This is not the first time that the reboot of RHONY has received backlash from viewers.
The series previously came under fire for casting Scientologist Rebecca Minkoff.
There was also a controversial scene in which Erin showed a photo of her husband’s penis to her castmates.
‘Wanna see his d**k?’ Erin asked Jenna and Brynn as they shopped inside a clothing boutique.
‘It’s beautiful. I’m proud of it,’ she gushed as she searched through her phone.
After finding the image and showing it to both Jenna and Brynn, the pair were visibly shocked and stunned.
Viewers were equally by shocked by Erin’s antics, with many taking to social media after the episode aired to voice their disdain.
‘It’s so high school. Why would you ever show someone body part without permission?’ wrote one.
‘Showing your husband’s nudes!! That’s weird [as f**k]… not funny, not cute, not a thing girls do,’ commented another.
‘Ummm, absolutely not. Lol. Showing your man’s meat to a woman who’s constantly flirting with your man is insane. Next thing you know Erin is crying about an affair. (Hopefully not),’ wrote a third.
