RHONY Is Coming Back For Season 13 So Soon

Update: Bravo announced on Tuesday, March 23 that RHONY Season 13 will premiere on May 4. Leah McSweeney, Luann de Lesseps, Ramona Singer, and Sonja Morgan are all set to return, while attorney, broadcaster, and producer Eboni K. Williams will join as a new housewife.

Earlier: Though Bravo has yet to officially renew RHONY for Season 13, Andy Cohen confirmed in August that the network is already working on it. "I'm excited for what we have planned," the Real Housewives executive producer teased to Us Weekly. In fact, TMZ reported that RHONY Season 13 started production in mid-September.

The reality series will likely return in early spring 2021, but it will look quite different. Not only did Tinsley Mortimer leave the show mid-season to move to Chicago and be with her fiancé, Scott Kluth, but news broke in August that Dorinda Medley had also left RHONY. "Sometimes taking a pause is a good thing and I am really hopeful that this is indeed a pause and that she would rejoin the show at some point," Cohen said of a possible Dorinda return during the Sept. 9 episode of Sirius XM's Radio Andy. "I think a pause is a good thing and she will come back renewed and refreshed."

RHONY vets Ramona Singer, Sonja Morgan, and Luann de Lesseps will likely be back for Season 13, though the Countess teased to Extra in August that there are "definitely going to be some new Housewives" in the cast. Despite a reported contract negotiation holdout, Season 12 newcomer Leah McSweeney confirmed her return on Instagram Sept. 21, writing, "My work here isn't done yet!"

In August, Leah also told Page Six that she wants a cast shakeup. "I hope that there’s not only diversity of race but an even deeper diversity of where someone lives or what their interests are," she said. "I hope that there’s just more diversity all across the board because New Yorkers are not a monolith, obviously. I think that it is gonna head in that direction."

According to TMZ, Bravo has reportedly tapped motivational speaker Bershan Shaw to be RHONY's first Black cast member. The Daily Mail's Senior News Correspondent Alicia Quarles is also rumored to be joining the show. "I can't confirm nor deny. I can just say that I’m friends with all the women on there," she recently hinted on David Yontef's Behind the Velvet Rope podcast. "They're wonderful. It's a bomb franchise. Listen, I’m the ultimate New Yorker. So, I'm just saying it. If it happens, it's all good."