Jill Zarin’s ‘Golden Life’ Firing Isn’t the 1st Time Her Attempts to Get Back on Reality TV Have Failed
Jill Zarin was set to appear on the upcoming series The Golden Life until her comments about Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show. After the performance, Zarin posted a video criticizing the fact that the show was in Spanish and what she perceived as a problematic lack of white people. The show then fired her. This is not the first time that Zarin’s potential return to reality television has fallen apart.
Jill Zarin was fired from ‘The Golden Life’ following her comments about Bad Bunny
The E! network is rebooting The Real Housewives of New York with The Golden Life. The show will follow former RHONY Housewives in Palm Beach. Zarin, who starred on seasons one through four of the Bravo series, was meant to appear alongside Luann de Lesseps, Ramona Singer, Kelly Bensimon, and Sonja Morgan on the upcoming series. This changed after she posted a video slamming Bad Bunny’s performance as “the worst halftime show ever.”
“I didn’t understand — I don’t speak Spanish, I would’ve like to know the words he was saying. To me, it looked like a political statement, because there were literally no white people in the entire thing,” she said, adding, “I think it was a political statement, and I’m not taking a side one way or the other. I just do. I think it was an ICE thing.”
The show’s producers, Blink49 Studios, cut ties with Zarin on Tuesday.
“In light of recent public comments made by Jill Zarin, Blink49 Studios has decided not to move forward with her involvement in The Golden Life,” they shared with The Hollywood Reporter. “We remain committed to delivering the series in line with our company standards and values.”
This is not the first time she has lost the opportunity to appear on reality television
After Zarin’s firing from The Real Housewives of New York in 2011, she has made several attempts to return to reality television. According to de Lesseps, Zarin nearly made a guest appearance on the show in season six, but Singer put a stop to it.
“Ramona [Singer] found out and she put the kibosh on that,” de Lesseps told 9News. “Because Jill had the ‘goods’ on her … What that means is Jill knew what was going on in Ramona’s life.”
Zarin later appeared as a guest on several episodes of RHONY. She also made an appearance on Real Ultimate Girls Trip, which came about after RHONY: Legacy fell apart.
After Bravo announced a reboot of RHONY, they said the original stars of the show would still appear on RHONY: Legacy. Zarin allegedly played a role in the series’ demise. The Valley: Persian Style star Reza Farahan claimed Zarin spoke to him about this.
“We were standing in the doorway about to do a competition, she said to me, ‘You know that show fell apart because of me,’” Farahan said on Page Six Radio.
In contract negotiations, Zarin reportedly demanded the same amount of money as de Lesseps. Farahan said the network believed Zarin “didn’t deserve it because [de Lesseps] had been on [the air] this whole time and [Zarin] wasn’t.”
He claimed that Zarin was “proud the show had fallen apart” because she “put her foot down and was demanding money.”
Despite this, Zarin has previously claimed that she had nothing to do with the scrapping of the show.
Jill Zarin protested her firing from ‘The Golden Life’
Zarin is not happy about getting booted from The Golden Life. She claimed that the network didn’t give her time to make things right.
“They didn’t even give me a chance,” she told In Touch. “I took it down right away. People make mistakes. I’m human.”
While some of Zarin’s friends have rallied to her defense, her daughter, former company Zarin Fabrics, and some former Housewives have worked to distance themselves from her.
