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Jill Zarin’s return to reality TV has ended before it even started.
On Tuesday, the production company behind The Golden Life, E!’s new show starring the OG stars of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New York (RHONY), announced that Zarin will no longer be part of the show set in South Florida following a now-viral (and deleted) video she posted reacting to Bad Bunny‘s Super Bowl halftime performance.
“In light of recent public comments made by Jill Zarin, Blink49 Studios has decided not to move forward with her involvement in The Golden Life,” the company said in a statement first reported by Variety. “We remain committed to delivering the series in line with our company standards and values.”
After Bad Bunny’s performance, Zarin took to Instagram to slam the production, calling it “the worst halftime show ever.”
“It’s 250 years that we’re celebrating right now in the United States,” she said in reference to the milestone anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. “I just don’t think it was appropriate to have it in Spanish.”
Beyond taking exception to the language in which Bad Bunny sang, Zarin also objected to the display at large. “Quite frankly, I don’t see him grabbing, you know, his ‘G area’ [genitals] — I think it was totally inappropriate. You’ve got all these young kids watching the Super Bowl, and he doesn’t have to be grabbing himself every five seconds. Is he so insecure?”
Returning to her initial beef, Zarin added, “I didn’t understand him. I don’t speak Spanish. I would have liked to have known the words he was saying.”
The reality star slammed the show’s politics. “To me, it looked like a political statement because there were literally no white people in the entire thing. I think it was a political statement, and I’m not taking a side one way or the other…I think it was an ICE thing, and I just think that the NFL sold out…Shame! Shame!”
Before signing off, Zarin threw a curveball with unsolicited comments on halftime show guest Lady Gaga’s appearance. “Lady Gaga got a facelift — I didn’t recognize her. I literally had to Google her face to see who it was.” Had the reality show star recognized Gaga, she might’ve noticed the singer is, indeed, white.
The ten-episode Golden Life, scheduled to begin filming in South Florida this spring, was set to feature Zarin alongside her fellow RHONY alumni — Countess Luann de Lesseps, Ramona Singer, Kelly Bensimon, and Sonja Morgan — as they navigate their new lives in Palm Beach. Zarin, a main RHONY cast member during its first four seasons, moved to Boca Raton full-time in 2023.
