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Housewife Jill on the Reunion and Jersey Girls

The feistiest redhead on TV gets you all caught up for the reunion shows of The Real Housewives of New York, all while throwing out barbs and talking gay rights.


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Bravo's Real Housewives of New York has morphed into the 21st-century version of the Clare Boothe Luce classic The Women. Front and center among all the fashion and fighting is Jill Zarin, a lady you can say many things about, but you can never call dull. On the eve of the three reunion shows for the third season of RHNY, airing on Bravo and hosted by the network's gay exec Andy Cohen, the spitfire spoke candidly as ever about her frenemies Bethenny, Alex, and Ramona. She also got in a few zingers about The Real Housewives of New Jersey and Twitter haters. But what Zarin really didn't want forgotten were her side projects and her commitment to gay causes.

The Advocate: This year the show became an outright phenomenon. What put it over the top?
Zarin: Because viewers didn't expect what happened to happen; they were caught off guard, and me too, by the way. If you spoke to me a year ago, I never could have anticipated Bethenny and I wouldn't be friends. And then all the good things that happened. And her getting pregnant and married. And then the bad thing about her father. No one could anticipate this. I don't know how [The Real Housewives of]New Jersey is doing in the ratings. I know that we're flying. I'm watching Jersey, and I think that it's more of the same, you know, it's like the good girls versus, well, not the good girls, but it's the Manzos against Danielle. Every week it's the different turn of each housewife, but it's the same as last year. What's different about our show this year is that everything did get twisted.

When you see the reunion, you'll see how the couches have changed. Last year was LuAnn [de Lesepps], Bethenny, and Jill on one couch and then the other girls on the other couch. Now Bethenny and I are on each side of Andy. I also think that the story of what the season was about, which was friendship, everybody can relate to. Everybody's a friend, and everybody's had a fight. Every relationship you handle differently, and there is no right, I mean, there are things that you can do better than other things. There's no right or wrong when it comes to feelings. And I think that people wanted to see how other people handle relationships. And I say it in the show. The most important thing in life is not money. It's relationships. At the end of the day, when you're on your deathbed, you don't think about your life, such as the things that you've made, it's the relationships that you have and that those are the people close to you. And I that's what I think makes me different. I don't come from nowhere. You know, I have parents, I have a sister. A really close, close family. We wrote a book together, Secrets of a Jewish Mother. I'm a grandmother now, which you don't see on the show. And the other housewives on the show don't show that kind of side to them. Or some of them don't even have it, that core family type of thing. It's not something you do right or wrong in life. It's just sort of what family you're born into.

You received a lot of criticism, and online threats, regarding your relationship with Bethenny. Were you surprised at how vested people got in your relationships?
Extremely surprised. It's amazing how people are invested in the show and the characters. Some people take it too literal. And you're The Advocate. I'm the advocate for the underdog. I don't apologize for it ... Kelly, Kelly also by the way, along the same lines, did the public service announcement on bullying because of the feelings that she had during the show for herself, and I can't help but think back to this little girl in Boston who committed suicide not long ago because she was cyber-bullied. She felt there was no place to go except to kill herself.

I'm an adult and can handle pretty much everything, but I want to put out [the fact that she was threatened on Twitter] for those who don't have a voice and who look to me as a role model. I have a lot of fans out there who write to me for advice. Since this is the gay advocate, I don't have to tell you that it's the same thing for gay people who have been harassed, abused, and bullied their whole life; there's been a lot of gay people have taken their lives because they felt they had no place to go and didn't know how to handle it. So it's sort of a similar thing in that sense. Everybody's entitled to their opinion. I'm all for free speech, and you can really say or do what you want, but if somebody encourages somebody to mail things to me and threaten me and my family, now you've crossed the line.

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Reader Comments
  • Name: Buffy Wood
    Date posted: 6/26/2010 2:56:08 PM
    Hometown: Springfield

    Comment:

    I have to say Jill comparing her and Kelly's "experience" to that of the 12 year old girl who committed suicide due to bullying is absolutely one of the worst things I have ever heard. What that poor girl and her family went through is such a tragedy and to jump on that "coat tail" is the lowest of the low. I am almost at a lost for word. How could she? She is so self absorbed. That statement along is absolutely unforgivable. And she wonders why she is so hated? She really has hit an all time low. Part of me hopes that comment makes it way around the internet so others can see how she really is, but I would hate for that girls family to ever see it. Talk about be-littling their experience and their grief? The next thing we will read is how she feel like the little baby dolphin who died in the oil spill in the Gulf because she like the dolphin is surrounded by toxicity.

  • Name: Boston02127
    Date posted: 6/25/2010 7:18:03 PM
    Hometown: Boston

    Comment:

    Anyone who watched Jill Zarin on the show would actually run from her. She is the biggest bully out of them all. She's proved herself to be mean and nasty. I think (know) anyone who watched her in action would agree. Also the book she is speaking of was reviewed BY HER on on Amazon, and she got caught. She lies and cheats to get what she wants. Google her name and read about the real Jill Zarin.

  • Name: d
    Date posted: 6/14/2010 9:26:32 AM
    Hometown: wilton manors

    Comment:

    Are you aware that Jill Zarin hosted a fund raiser for Gov. Charlie Crist last summer at their home in Sag Harbor? With friends like her, do we really need enemies?

  • Name: Ana
    Date posted: 6/13/2010 5:17:09 PM
    Hometown: Minneapolis, MN

    Comment:

    Greenlee, I find it sad that the one word that I found offensive had all the letters. (Offensive in this comment, not as a word.) Ana

  • Name: Brandon
    Date posted: 6/11/2010 2:34:26 AM
    Hometown: Baltimore

    Comment:

    So much investment in other people's lives... wow. Anyone who does a reality show is a bit of a narcissist FYI (which means all of them). I've only watched a few episodes here and there but Jill seems the less likely to be "playing up the media"... Ramona, Bethenney, and Alex... just saying. Bethenney in the reunion almost outright said it. The Media is her money-maker. The more she's in it the more money she can make. As to the whole thing Jill is like me and I run too... so I understand it's combination of dealing with "Too much" and keeping one's temper down.

  • Name: Dan
    Date posted: 6/10/2010 10:02:13 PM
    Hometown: Chicago

    Comment:

    I hesitate to respond to "Jill Damage" because he/she is obviously not mentally equipped for an exchange of opinions. I am not Jill. I have never met Jill, and I know no one who has. Erick can speak for himself, but he is probably not Jill either. Does the reader also think he/she sees Jill in the bushes, cryptically air-brushed in magazine advertisements, or perhaps in the stains on his/her panties? This reader should talk to someone about this problem. As for complaining about other people's hate, this poster appears to need psychiatric help, as he/she obviously doesn't see his/her own hate in asking Jill to commit suicide, or talking like a 2-yr old about "fatty" skating outfits, etc. Anyway, whatever mental ward this reader/poster calls home, I hope he/she is securely manacled there. By the way, the Advocate, of course, knows that I am who I say I am, and also a long-time and respected political activist and published writer on politics and history.

  • Name: Greenlee
    Date posted: 6/10/2010 9:01:56 PM
    Hometown: Los Angeles

    Comment:

    What a fak_ mo_on Jew _unt....

  • Name: Emmy
    Date posted: 6/10/2010 8:44:40 PM
    Hometown: Chicago

    Comment:

    Wow, taking "subtle" hits at Bethenny for not having a family is a WHOLE new low even for you!!! Its absolutely disgusting to even go there. You only keep digging yourself further into the gorund byh defending your behavior over and over again. Shut up and eat your crow for goodness sake. Showing up in st. john when you knew the kind of stress they had just gone through was disrespectful and incredibly self-absorbed. You freaked when Bethenny showed up at Ramona's when her only intent was to "make peace" with you yet you ambush her on a remote island after she has told you she is done and you see nothing wrong with this?! not to mention she is pregnant, has just lost her father, has been attacked by a lunatic, and having medical problems with the pregnancy. WAKE UP JILL...WOW!!!!!!!

  • Name: Morgaine
    Date posted: 6/10/2010 8:17:37 PM
    Hometown: Eastern, KY

    Comment:

    It sickens me that Jill and Kelly are trying to spin Kelly's paranoid breakdown as a reaction to bullying. It's an insult to all the poor kids who suffer from real situations from which they can't escape. Shame on them. Kelly was clearly the aggressor with the other women, and she was not rational or in control of herself. She needs to stop making videos and get some professional help who can give her the medication she needs. BRAVO should do the responsible thing and drop Kelly from the show. It's not right to exploit a mentally ill person this way. I wish BRAVO would drop Jill from the show, too, but because she's such a horrible and unpleasant character. If she's on the show and Bethenny isn't, I won't be watching anymore. I'm really looking forward to Bethenny Getting Married? because there's no Jill, Kelly or LuAnn in it.

  • Name: Alana's Cat
    Date posted: 6/10/2010 7:21:09 PM
    Hometown: Currently In Hiding

    Comment:

    Jill Zarin used a fake name (Susan Saunders) on Amazon to threaten reviewers who did not rate her book favorably. One reviewer, in particular, she threatened, called an antisemitic (incidentally, Jill Zarin threw out that same insult to Andy Cohen at a recent appearance), and said people should steal the reviewer's cat (which was actually a dog - HA!). She also used that same phony identity to write 5* reviews of her products and negative reviews on the products belonging to the co-stars she does not get along with. In short, Jill Zarin is nothing more than an unethical fraud. It doesn't phase me in the least how she behaved on the show - her real life actions are what have turned me off.

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