Jenna Lyons Is Keeping Her Dating Life Away From RHONY Cameras

Jenna Lyons is doing what few Housewives have gotten away with: keeping her love life off-camera. On the second episode of the Real Housewives of New York City reboot, the former J. Crew president and creative director admitted that she was in a relationship but refused to reveal her girlfriend to her fellow new Housewives while filming. “Because I’ve had so much press, I am very quiet about that so I’m not sharing that,” she told her castmates while at dinner in the Hamptons.

When asked by producers about why she’s staying quiet about her relationship, Lyons explained that she was respecting her significant other’s wishes for privacy. “My life has put me in the public eye for my job and other things I’ve done, and that is my choice,” she said. “If someone does not want to be in that with me, then I have to respect that.”

Lyons’ fellow Housewives were supportive at the table, with Jessel Taank only asking if she was happy with her “lucky lady,” as Erin Lichy put it, to which Lyons said “yes.” But others still had questions about her dating life. “I want to know what’s going on with her relationship,” Sai de Silva said in a confessional. “She knows my husband, why can’t I know her girlfriend? We’re friends, that’s what friends do — we know each other’s spouses.”

It may have been best that Lyons kept quiet about her then-girlfriend because as reported by the New York Times, she’s no longer dating that woman. Lyons is currently dating photographer Cass Bird, as the outlet confirmed in June. Bird has worked with the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Shawn Mendes, and Margot Robbie. It’s not known how long the two have been dating, but it seems to be a relatively new relationship, with Lyons telling the outlet in April, “I currently have a massive crush on someone else.”

Lyons’ instinct to keep her love life off-camera may also be related to her experience of being publicly outed as a lesbian. During the episode, the designer reflected on her forced coming out, saying she was in the process of divorcing her ex-husband Vincent Mazeau when the CEO and head of PR at J. Crew called her to explain that Page Six had information about her being seen on a date with a woman. “Would you like to confirm or deny,” the paper had asked, as Lyons told her castmates.

“I was already in the process of getting divorced but I had not told my mom, I had not told my brother, I had not told my family, I had not told anyone at work,” she recalled. “I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was three weeks into this thing... Anyway, I heard the words come out of my mouth. I just said, ‘Confirm.’” Lyons called it “one of the hardest things” she’s ever experienced, but said she got through with the support of her team. “I’m so grateful by how incredibly gracious everyone in the office [was],” she said. “Not my mom, but everybody else.”