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Originally appeared on E! Online
Carole Radziwill is getting real with the housewives again.
The former journalist is officially returning for season 16 of The Real Housewives of New York after an eight-year hiatus, and the newest teaser proves it’s not one fans should miss.
In the trailer released July 21, Radziwill admits she “can’t believe” she’s returned to join as a “friend of” cast members Sai De Silva, Erin Lichy, Jessel Taank, Hailey Glassman, Erika Hammond and Daisy Toye.
And immediately, she faces an awkward moment during a day in the city.
The 62-year-old is heckled on a New York City street while with Lichy with a passerby calling her “the one from the Epstein files,” nodding to her mention in some of the uncovered documents from disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
While her costars only react with confusion in the moment, a later scene in a tropical location alongside De Silva sees Radziwill discuss her Epstein connection again. As the Scout in the City blogger asks Radziwill in the scene, “You never went to the island?”
READ Bill Gates Alleges Jeffrey Epstein Tried to Blackmail Him Over Infidelity in Melinda Gates Marriage
The former Kennedy in-law didn’t hold back with her response. “No,” Radziwill emphasizes. “You think I’m part of an international sex-trafficking ring?”
Elsewhere in the new trailer, Toye makes her appearance with lifestyle guru Martha Stewart and later mentions being part of a “lavender marriage” with her husband Eugene Toye.
Trust, there is plenty of arguing over dinner, too. At one point, Glassman yells at Taank at a meal with the whole cast claiming the entirety of New York City knew about a rumor being discussed.
In another clip, Radziwill appears to address the cultural obsession with Ryan Murphy’s Love Story series, which followed the romance of John F. Kennedy Jr.—the cousin of her late husband Anthony Radziwill—and her friend Carolyn Bessette before their tragic 1999 deaths, saying in a voiceover, “Everyone’s American love story is my American horror story.”
Although Radziwill’s direct address of her Epstein affiliation certainly raises eyebrows ahead of the upcoming RHONY season, the longtime reality star has not shied away from addressing her ties to the disgraced late financier and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. (He died by suicide in 2019 awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges.)
“I never knew Jeffrey Epstein,” Radziwill—who was mentioned by name in Maxwell’s emails released in the files—told the New York Times in an interview published in March, although noting she was at one point close to Maxwell adding: “Imagine knowing someone and even being friendly with them and then they turn out to be, like, a monster.”
And Radziwill emphasized that Maxwell’s Epstein affiliation—and 20-year prison sentence for conspiring with him to sexually abuse minors—was a complete shock to her.
“The thing about her that made it easy for me to spend any time with her at all was that she was very intelligent, she was educated,” she explained. “If you lined up 10 women and you asked, like, pick the woman who would be involved in an international sex trafficking ring, it would not be her.”
For more on the Real Housewives and the women behind the franchise, keep reading…
