Ubah Hassan Is Not Cut Out for Reality TV

Tuesday night was part one of the Real Housewives of New York City season finale, which marked the first time Ubah Hassan and Brynn Whitfield were in the same room since filming wrapped. The episode didn’t get to the point of discussing the fight between the two women that ended the season, but we’ve already seen Brynn’s feet held to the fire as well as surprising emotion and compassion from Ubah. I’m not going to recap the fight in question, because I’ve already covered that, and I don’t want to give the debate more airtime. Right now, we’re here to talk about Ubah.

In light of this season’s events, Ubah has given an interview of sorts to Glamour magazine. I say “of sorts” because it’s like a cross between an interview and an open letter. In it, she defends herself against her conflict with Brynn as well as the many other conflicts she had with the rest of the cast throughout the season. As I see it, this is Ubah’s thesis statement: “I started to realize: They aren’t always being 100%. I didn’t get the memo. I was on all the time.”

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Therein lies Ubah’s problem: she’s too real for reality TV. This is something I usually see in freshman Housewives who join established casts and find themselves discombobulated by all the self-producing and flat-out lying of their cast mates, but those Housewives usually catch on by their sophomore season. The problem with Ubah and RHONY is that it’s everyone’s sophomore season; the cast Ubah finds herself a part of was entirely new just one season ago. None of her cast mates had ever been on reality TV before last year either, but the rest of them are a little less naive about their mission. Ubah really thought everyone was on the same page about being their most authentic selves and hiding nothing from the cameras, and no one ever stopped her to tell her that wasn’t the case.

I feel for Ubah in this situation with Brynn, and I agree with a lot of what she writes in the article. I think I would feel and react similarly if put in similar situations. But what the article reveals is that she still just doesn’t get it; she’s still expecting earnestness and sincerity from reality TV stars. Listen, I’m a Sagittarius—I like brutal honesty in a lady—but Ubah needs to realize that she’s a reality star now, too, and she needs to come to terms with what that means, or she’s just going to keep getting hurt and disappointed.