Earlier this week, Bravo announced that all six cast members of the rebooted Real Housewives of New York City would return for their second season (the franchise’s 15th), as reported by Variety, bringing rumors about whether the network would add two new members, including one with ties to the art world.
It’s now rumored that that cast member might be Racquel Chevremont, a collector and curator who is also the ex-partner of artist Mickalene Thomas. Chevremont is also a friend of current cast member Jenna Lyons, the former creative director of J. Crew. (Bravo blog Bravo and Cocktails first posted a blind item about the news on March 19; Artnet News’s Wet Paint column picked up the story on Friday.)
Chevremont has amassed a modest collection of around 70 to 80 works by artists such as Lorna Simpson, Glenn Ligon, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Deborah Roberts, and Toyin Ojih Odutola. She also previously served as a trustee of the Studio Museum in Harlem.
She recently consulted on the art-filled set decoration for the Netflix film Leave the World Behind. Beyond the art world, she has modeled, most recently walking in Batsheva Hay’s New York Fashion Week show in February.
Prior to their spilt, Thomas and Chevremont founded Deux Femmes Noires, which was aimed to raise the profile of artists of color. Together, they mounted exhibitions, including one in 2022, titled “Set It Off,” at the Parrish Art Museum in Watermill, New York. The two also co-produced a performance by artist Kia LaBeija as part of the 2019 Performa Biennial in New York.
“As a collector, I collect their work; as a curator, I curate them into commercial and institutional shows, on television shows, and in films,” Chevremont told Master & Dynamic in 2022. “The landscape has changed dramatically and there are now many paths that can be taken as an artist, so I’ll give advice based on what their aspirations are, whether that be institutional or commercial success.”
Chevremont’s potential appearance on RHONY is not Bravo’s first time trying to reach the art world. In 2010, the network aired Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, which ran for two seasons. Often pilloried in the art press at the time, the show featured critic Jerry Saltz and dealer Bill Powers as judges, as well as artists like Nao Bustamante and Amanda Williams.
And, in 2019, former RHONY cast members Bethenny Frankel and Luann de Lesseps took a tour of murals in Miami’s Wynwood district and did a studio visit with artist Romero Britto. That season also included a visit to the Brooklyn studio of artist Hunt Slonem by Frankel and cast member Sonja Morgan.
As with any Housewives franchise, there are two tiers of regularly featured characters on the show: the main Housewives, who appear in the intro with a signature one-liner, and “Friends of the Housewives,” who often recur in multiple episodes per season and are sometimes promoted to a full Housewife in later seasons.
Given her friendship with Lyons, Chevremont could qualify as either role. According to Variety, “As for reports on the internet about two new women joining the group, Bravo isn’t commenting on potential new cast members.”
Prior to the confirmation of the full cast’s return, there was speculation as to whether not some cast members might not return, especially after a tense reunion. The new cast’s biggest draw was, of course, Lyons (better known within the show’s universe as Jenna “Fucking” Lyons), who was a fixture of the New York scene for much of the 2000s. In an interview with Lyons about coming back, the New York Times wrote, “From the start, she wasn’t quite Bravo’s type: a discerning former fashion executive dropped into a fishbowl of screaming and scheming.”
Lyons, who has been adamant about keeping her relationship off-camera, told the Times, “They [Bravo] have been very amenable. I had similar issues — I have a relationship, but I would like to not name her. I want to keep her out of the press. That is my commitment to her. It’s off the table. I joined this process. She did not.”