Today in Real Housewife Profiles: Jill Zarin

By Sheer Elegance, GTOG Special Guest Blogger

I’ve been given the challenge of bringing GTOG Nation up to speed on my favorite sport: The Real Housewives of NYC.  Season four begins next Thursday, April 7, and I'll be here every day until then to make sure you have your bearings on the big day.  Have you missed the glamour of awkward PR “events,” copious pinot grigio, and treasured lessons on etiquette?  I know I have.

These housewives have been working:  their cores, skin care lines, and drag queen anthems since season three ended last summer.  I watched much of that season’s compelling life lessons at 3am while nursing my new baby, waiting to nurse my new baby, or waiting for my new baby to wake up/go to sleep, so my memory of this time is mostly like that of seeing the Allman Brothers Band in New Hampshire after swallowing whatever my friend’s friend’s friend ensured me was going to be fine, he promised. Anyway. At the end of the season, I have to say I was ready for a break from these beeyotches for realz. They were awful. They were fighting and screeching practically swatting each other like toddlers. They were catty. Awful. Their teeth were too white and their hair unnaturally smooth. It was weird.

But now I’m caffeinated and ready for a fresh season of my favorite totally staged show of ladies who lunch, lash out, and linger in my brain more than anything I learned in AP US History.

So let me break it down for you folks, one housewife at a time.
 

Meet Jill, the owner of a "gay husband," a hilarious mother, and a Chihuahua, after the jump... 


Jill Zarin

Oy. Jill is like your friend from college who seems down to earth and warm, but then cuts you with her Louis Vuitton shiv when you enter the bathroom at Yom Kippur services. I watch people interact with her on the show and can hear the internal anti-Semitic commentary beyond their glazed expressions. She makes me just the tiniest bit embarrassed to be Jewish and from New York.

Jill is married to Bawby AKA Bobby, who is in the schmatte business. Zarin fabrics is their shop on the Lower East Side, where Jill has pretended to work in the past. They have a daughter Alison, who is definitely the most natural person on the show in her adolescent, slightly mortified “my mom has chosen to put me on a reality show but I’m going with it” kind of vibe. Jill had a “gay husband,” “Brad,” who also worked fondling fabrics at the store, but then he got drunk on camera a bunch of times and started to upstage Jill with his seersucker suits and inappropriate comments, so we started seeing much less of “Brad.” Jill also has a hilarious mother named Gloria, who probably hopes to also get her own show at some point. She gives a lot uninvited bromides to whomever happens to be around, and its hard to tell if she is 50 years old or 120 as a result of her intense facelift. Jill also has a sister who is a radio host and seems kind of smart and normal. The sisters and the mom all wrote a book together with “Jewish Mother” in the title, natch.

Jill has at least one Chihuahua.


Not Even Jill's Chihuahua

The most important thing you need to know about Jill is that she bonded hard in seasons 1 and 2 with Bethenney and then they had a giant falling out in season 3, which ended with Bethenney leaving the show without forgiving her. Jill looked BAD. Its vague what actually happened between them, which is strange for these women who seem to have no problem exposing any and every thing about their lives, but there was a lot of crying and self pity and gossiping and something having to do with Bethenney not calling to follow up after she sent flowers when Bawby had a cancer scare without being told he was actually sick (but he ended up being fine). Confused? So was Bethenney.

But Jill showed her true colors as the whiney tween that she is, and Bethenney looked like a freaking hero/genius/moral center of the show. In a story arc that reads like a modern American fairy tale for our times, Bethenney departed RHONY with dignity and now has her own show on Bravo, about finding love and having first a wedding and then a baby and now a nanny so she can manage herself as a “brand,” which apparently is indistinct from the brand that is Skinny Girl Margarita Mix ©.

So that’s Jill.