RHONY Star Explains the 1 Thing She Would Change From Her 1st Season

Rebecca Minkoff revealed she regrets pulling a prank on her co-stars during her first season of “The Real Housewives of New York City.”

While filming her freshman season of the Bravo reality show, the fashion designer made waves for a prank she cooked up. In a controversial scene, Minkoff pretended she was pregnant by someone other than her husband, Gavin Bellour. At the time, several of her co-stars were going through fertility issues.

Speaking with Page Six’s “Virtual Reali-Tea” in December 2024, Minkoff acknowledged her joke was in poor taste. “You know what, in hindsight — terrible subject matter. I own it. Big mistake on my part,” she admitted to the outlet. “I had no idea Jessel [Taank] was going through what she was going through, nor Ubah [Hassan], nor Brynn [Whitfield], but any woman who is going through infertility — like bad idea.”

Minkoff noted that viewers were upset by both the subject of her prank and the fact that it was “produced” for the Bravo reality show.

Rebecca Minkoff Previously Joked That She’d Do It Again

Minkoff enlisted the help of her RHONY co-star Erin Lichy to leak the fake news. Ironically, on the day the episode aired on Bravo, Lichy announced she was pregnant with her fourth child with her husband Abe.

In a post-show interview for Bravo TV, Lichy clarified that Minkoff devised the plan and she agreed to leak it. “We devised that I’m pregnant. We don’t know who the father is. Just because it’s so ridiculous to spread that rumor. Like you have to be a little cuckoo,” Minkoff said in November. “I could have probably chosen a different prank. Thank God my husband has a sense of humor.”

Minkoff also admitted she thought her co-stars would get a kick out of the joke, but it instead turned into an intense situation. “No one laughed,” she said. “I have regrets that no one thought it was funny. I mean, Erin and I laughed a lot, but I thought we were going to get more laughter.

But when asked if she would do the prank again, Minkoff revealed, “Yeah.”

Andy Cohen Was Not a Fan of the Prank

After the episode aired, Bravo host And producer Andy Cohen denounced the pregnancy prank.

During  an episode of “Watch What Happens Live,”  Cohen said, “I’m not a fan of a prank, I’ve got to be honest.”

His guest, Jeff Lewis, agreed. “I think it’s a bad move. I think it’s self-producing,” Lewis said. “I think that you lose trust in your audience. I think it’s a bad move. I don’t like pranks.”

Speaking with Access Hollywood soon after, Cohen acknowledged that viewers were turned off by the joke. “Fans are upset, and I get it,” he said. “I don’t love a prank. The thing is, this is something that actually happened while we were filming, and it had reverberations after the prank was played. There were reverberations in the group. So, it wasn’t Something that we felt we couldn’t show.”

Cohen noted that it was really a lose-lose situation.“If we tipped the audience off at the beginning that it was a prank then I think they would have been annoyed by that. They were annoyed with how it was. So, I just think there was no escaping that they were gonna be annoyed by that,” he said. “I am happy to say to everyone that was annoyed we have moved past it and there’s a lot more to come with this season of RHONY.”