Rebecca Minkoff is being criticized for a pregnancy prank she pulled on a recent episode of The Real Housewives of New York.
In the Tuesday (November 12) episode of the Bravo reality show, the 42-year-old fashion designer enlisted the help of fellow cast member Erin Lichy to trick Jenna Lyons, Sai De Silva, Jessel Taank, Brynn Whitfield, and Ubah Hassan into believing she was expecting.
Lichy, 37, first spoke to Whitfield, 38, and Lyons, 56, when she planted the faux pregnancy seed. “It’s very, very early on, and she’s really stressed about it,” Lichy said about Minkoff.
The real estate agent continued the ruse for the fashion mogul, telling their friends that Minkoff wasn’t sure if her husband, Gavin Bellour, was the father of the baby. Soon, Whitfield was convinced by the prank so much that she allegedly spoke with Bellour about the news.
Minkoff and Lichy then had it out at a group gathering to make it seem as though Minkoff was mad at her friend for divulging her “secret.”
Although viewers knew about the lie, with Minkoff and Lichy seen giggling off-camera about their “believable” story, fans weren’t too pleased that the whole episode was focused on the fake pregnancy storyline – and executive producer Andy Cohen wasn’t either.
After the episode aired, Cohen spoke to Flipping Out alum Jeff Lewis on Watch What Happens Live and agreed that the faux pregnancy plot was a “bad move.”
“I’m not a fan of a prank, I’ve got to be honest,” the talk show host said, before Lewis added: “I think it’s a bad move. I think it’s self-producing. I think that you lose trust in your audience. I think it’s a bad move. I don’t like pranks.”
Online, fans agreed that the joke wasn’t funny, with some calling it “dumb” and “embarassing” for the show.
“This whole Rebecca Minkoff pregnancy thing being a prank is very dumb,” one viewer wrote on X/Twitter. “But then to frame an entire episode around it (and also tease it in the season’s trailer) as if it was true is honestly just wasting our time.”
Another fan wrote: “We should’ve known this pregnancy rumor was going to be a prank, we’ve already caught editors leaving Brynn and Rebecca Minkoff self-producing in the previous episodes. This is just embarrassing.”
“Wow, somehow Brynn and Erin managed to manufacture drama that is more boring and tired,” a third user noted, while a fourth said: “The ‘prank’ would have been OK if the producers hadn’t framed an entire episode around it AND put it in the previews.”
