The Real Housewife who made it without the show
Jewish designer Rebecca Minkoff was a success before Bravo signed her up - and also a Scientologist
Brigit Grant is the Jewish News Supplements Editor
I’m very glad it’s all over. I don’t regret it by any stretch of the imagination, but now I can use my energy on exciting things, the outcome of which I can fully control.”
Rebecca Minkoff is talking about The Real Housewives of New York (RHONY), the long-running Bravo cat fight that has chronicled the lives of the Big Apple’s affluent women since 2008.
Rebecca stepped into the most recent season as a “friend of a friend”, but the fashion designer known for her signature bags, accessories and clothes is stepping back indefinitely.
“I’ll never put myself in that position again,” she says. “It was sold to me as a reboot of the show that would have more fun and less drama – that was one of the reasons I said yes initially.”
Trusting that pitch was Rebecca’s first misstep, as the franchise thrives on manufacturing feuds between so-called friends and then shaping them to look worse in the final edit. Did she really believe they were going to ditch that winning format? “Well, I loved the fact I was with all these self-made women, but going in as a ‘friend of a friend’ meant they stop at your front door and you’re not in the main shoot. I was okay with that but thought they would tell my work story as we shot it. For whatever reason, they decided not to share it.”
It was a mistake not to because her eponymous brand, which she started with her brother Uri, is celebrating its 20th anniversary and she remains chief creative officer, even though she sold it for millions in early 2022, while pregnant with her third child.
She has four children now with husband Gavin Bellour, divides her time between homes in New York and birth place Florida, and all this all began with a dress she designed for her bat mitzvah. “I still have the dress – it’s in storage,” she says and promises to send a photo of her wearing it in 1993. It has yet to arrive, but Rebecca has a lot on her to-do list, including promoting her book Fearless: The New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Courage and Success, which is out now in paperback.
“I’m more relaxed about it now,” she insists, which is not surprising as it is all about “overcoming self-doubt and finding the courage to embrace ambition”. Rebecca has nailed all aspects of her DIY manual over two decades in the fashion industry and, in 2018, she co-founded the Female Founder Collective with the aim of empowering female-owned and led companies. Helping women entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses sits neatly with her other project RM Superwomen – a social platform that encourages women worldwide to lead brave and courageous lives.
That she manages to do all this while looking effortlessly stylish in elegant but wearable clothes that she designed and in which she appears on her meticulously-managed Instagram page is probably what irked the Real Housewives. That and the Scientology.
It was during a helicopter flight to The Hamptons in episode two that Rebecca announced that she identifies as both Jewish and a Scientologist. Cue the gasps and a controversial debate on screen and within the audience, who questioned casting a member of what is deemed a cult. Rebecca remains unapologetic and steadfast about her Jewish faith, but alongside tactical counselling courses provided by Scientology.
“We are members of an incredible congregation in New York at the Lab/Shul on Varick Street, which I discovered when my friend’s daughter was batmitzvah there. Do I go every week? Absolutely not, although I would love to say I do. We go for the High Holy Days and try to keep Shabbat on Fridays, but we’re definitely not perfect.”
And the Scientology? Rebecca pauses. “It’s very different from traditional faith-based religions, where there’s belief in God and prayer and rituals, but for me personally it’s been most helpful in dealing with everything that’s been happening with the Jewish people. It just gives me solace.”
Rebecca was not unique on the show with her faith-with-a-twist choices. Over on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Lisa Barlow is a Jew to Mormon convert, so knew the ropes when co-star Meredith Marks had a mature bat mitzvah last season.
In The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Kyle Richards is a Jewish convert – although she’s heading for divorce from husband Mauricio Umansky, a trend in the franchise, as Israeli housewife Dorit Kemsley is now estranged from her spouse Paul. Back in RHONY, ex-housewife Leah McSweeney has also converted to Judaism and has been posting about it endlessly.
For all the criticism Rebecca received for her faith revelations, none were as bad as those she got for posting support for Israel after October 7. “As I no longer own my label, the brand’s management didn’t want me making comments on the company page and it got extraordinarily heated because I felt we should. But I’ve been very vocal on my personal feed and I have heard the anti-Israel protests in the triangle by my office and it’s really upsetting that that’s where we’re at.”
Despite her instinct to be protective of her family, Rebecca continues to put up the Israel flag and images of the hostages. “It’s uncomfortable, but it’s going to get a lot more uncomfortable for everybody if we don’t speak out. I’d rather be stating my piece than crossing my fingers and being silent because that’s what got us into trouble a long time ago.”
For all Rebecca’s fashion flare, it was the humble T-shirt that launched her career, post that batmitvah dress; a simple I Love New York tee that she customised in the wake of the September 11 attacks that caught the eye of actress Jenna Elfman, who wore it on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
“That was 20 years ago and I used to think that you’d get to this spot and sit back, relax and enjoy the show. But it is harder because you have to stay interested in this thing you’ve been talking about for 20 years. ‘What’s the new twist on the story after all this time? Sometimes it can be harder to stay fresh in fashion when you’re established than someone who just launched.”
Rebecca knew that the offer to create a Wicked bag collection made sense, as creating something sleek, black and studded for Elphaba and pink and whimsical for Glinda was too tempting for this fan of the show. But when the offer came, “my last baby was 10 days old when the PR firm asked me to go to London to be the bag partner for Wicked”.
You would expect the author of a book about embracing ambition to immediately pack a bag (one of her own designs) as it was “the opportunity of a lifetime”.
“And for a moment I did think ‘I’ll just bring the baby it’s fine,’ but then I realised you can’t get a passport for a baby of that age, so I decided to focus on the child and sent my second in command.”
Even Rebecca, with all her acumen, could not have predicted the success of her Elphaba and Glinda. “We sold out of the product,” she says – and that was before the film opened and there’s a sequel coming.
“Yes, we’re in planning mode,” says Rebecca. “I’m waiting for access to the portal, which will give me the new artwork iconography and graphics. Once I have that, I’ll be able to come up with the design which will be an apparel offering as well as a bag.”
Of course there will be a bag and, for the record, Rebecca’s Glinda featured in Real Housewives on a shopping spree to her store. What was she saying about being the friend of a friend?
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