When Jessel Taank signed up for the revamped version of the Bravo series The Real Housewives of New York, she saw it as an opportunity to reeducate America on what a “housewife” could look like.
“When I was having conversations with the team about what this actually was and what their vision was, it was very, very specific about making a change,” says Taank. She’s dressed in a denim-on-denim look, seated in a corner booth at Cecconi’s in New York’s Nomad neighborhood. It's a Wednesday afternoon, just a few days after the first episode of the rebooted reality show premiered. “The women before were so fabulous, and they had a 13-year-run, but it was a microcosm of what New York City is—it was the Upper East Side and it wasn't culturally diverse. When I think of New York City, it's such a melting pot of people from different walks of life. That was really the goal here: let's take one of the most beloved franchises, but make it relevant."
Taank, a former publicist for Michael Kors and the real estate development firm Westfield, is the first Indian housewife to join the broader Housewives series, which first debuted in 2006. She lives in Chelsea—not the Upper East Side like many previous cast members—and she is making sure to use her newfound visibility to bring topics like mental health and fertility struggles to the RHONY universe.
Here, the 40-year-old shares why it was scary but crucial for her to destigmatize IVF within her own family and publicly, how she and her husband are navigating putting their relationship under a microscope, and what she hopes to share if a second season of Real Housewives is in her future.
