Former president and creative director of J Crew, Jenna Lyons, will make history as the first out housewife on the Real Housewives of New York! She will become the second out housewife cast by the franchise in its long sixteen years on our televisions, the first being Julia Lamigova, a former model and wife to retired tennis star Martina Navratilova, who was inducted to the Real Housewives of Miami in 2021.
Lyons is not new to reality television. In 2020, she starred in the HBO Max series Stylish With Jenna Lyons. According to Vogue, while Lyons was called “The Woman Who Dresses America” in her “heydey,” 2013, “there isn’t a single person or brand shaping the look of American fashion, nor is it reasonable to expect someone to do it the way Lyons did,” today either.
Like many sapphic stars, Lyons was outed in 2011 when the New York Post reported that she was dating a woman almost immediately after announcing her divorce from Vincent Mazeau.
“When I first moved to New York, the only gay people I knew were men,” Lyons said, via The Cut. “I didn’t even know any gay women. So it wasn’t on my radar. And it also wasn’t something that I made a conscious decision about.
“Years later, I was getting ready to go through a divorce, getting ready to leave my husband — we were not in a great place. My close, new friend, Courtney, was the person I was talking to [about it], and she happened to be gay. I remember really distinctly sitting in a restaurant saying, “Well, like, what exactly do you do? Like, how does it work? From a physical standpoint, what are the mechanics like?” ’Cause I didn’t know.
“And by the time she finished talking to me, I was hot, and I was like, Oh my God, why do I want to kiss this person? This is really strange. It was completely a takeover. It wasn’t something where I had been dreaming about it or thinking about it. I was surprised. Something happened, and we ended up getting together.
“So very soon after I had told my husband that I wanted a divorce, she and I were having dinner. When you have feelings for someone, you don’t have to be touching, you don’t have to be doing anything, but the people around you can tell something’s going on. We were probably sitting a little too close, looking at each other a little too longingly. We were sitting in Cafe Cluny and someone called the Post and felt like it was their job to share my personal story with the world.”
Lyons was working as the head of J Crew at the time. While in the meeting, the heads of marketing called over the intercom to say that they had a call from the New York Post who wanted her to confirm or deny rumors she was dating a woman.
“I’m like, literally six weeks into this totally new relationship,” she said. “I heard the word “confirm” come out of my mouth. It wasn’t like I was confirming that I was gay or that I was bi. The truth was, I was seeing a woman, so yes, confirmed. I wasn’t going to lie about it. And then it just kind of snowballed.”
