Former J. Crew chief Jenna Lyons to join 'Real Housewives of New York City' cast
Jenna Lyons, the New York City fashion designer who was famously outed by the New York Post over a decade ago, will join the cast of “The Real Housewives of New
Jenna Lyons, the New York City fashion designer who was famously outed by the New York Post over a decade ago, will join the cast of “The Real Housewives of New York City” next year for the show’s 14th season.
With a notable LGBTQ fan base, the Bravo franchise has featured many queer people in its 16-year history. Last year, former Russian model Julia Lemigova, who is married to tennis great Martina Navratilova, joined the cast of “The Real Housewives of Miami,” becoming the first cast member of any of the show’s nearly dozen American iterations to be in a same-sex marriage. (Bravo and NBC News are both owned by NBCUniversal.)
Lyons will be the first queer housewife to join the franchise’s New York City series as one of its seven new cast members. She spent nearly three decades at J. Crew, and as an executive tried her hand at retrofitting the retailer to a rapidly changing consumer and influencer economy. The headline of a 2013 profile of Lyons in The New York Times called her “the woman who dresses America.”
She left the company amid declining sales in 2017, after having served as its president since 2010. Most recently she founded a fake eyelash company and developed a show about fashion on HBO Max.
Lyons’ personal life was plastered across the tabloids in 2011 when she left her longtime husband, artist Vincent Mazeau, for jewelry executive Courtney Crangi. Their romantic relationship was revealed by the New York Post after someone spotted Lyons and Crangi at a New York restaurant amid Lyons’ divorce.
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