On Super Bowl Sunday, Jill Zarin trashed the Halftime Show, loudly complaining that it didn’t feature enough white people or enough English lyrics for her tastes.
This isn’t exactly new territory for Zarin. She’s now fired from an upcoming Bravo project — one that feels increasingly cursed.
Other Housewives, past and present, spoke out immediately to condemn her racist rant.
But Brandi Glanville, for some reason, is actually defending her. Does she have a point?
Jill Zarin could have said nothing! It’s free!
“We all agree — it was the worst halftime show ever,” Zarin insisted in a swiftly-deleted Instagram rant, which you can view below.
“It’s 250 years that we’re celebrating right now in the United States,” she noted, bizarrely adding: “And I just don’t think it was appropriate to have it in Spanish.”
She also insisted that it “looked like a political statement, because there were literally no white people in the entire thing.”
(That was not true, and Zarin’s rant also complained about Lady Gaga, a white woman who took part in the show)
“I think it was a political statement, and I’m not taking a side one way or the other,” Zarin insisted. “I just do. I think it was an ICE thing.”
Jill Zarin’s review of Bad Bunny’s #SuperBowl Halftime Show… 🥴 pic.twitter.com/XH8f0HjQpI
— Gibson Johns (@gibsonoma) February 9, 2026
Producers for Blink49 Studios, behind the upcoming The Golden Life Bravo series, issued a statement on the following Tuesday.
“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 production company shared.
The statement added: “We remain committed to delivering the series in line with our company standards and values.”
It is important to remember that Zarin was previously on The Real Housewives of New York City (pre-soft-reboot), which lapsed into a hiatus due to a racism scandal.
Even the reboot had a racism scandal early on. Lizzy Savetsky awkwardly declined to do matchmaking work for Brynn Whitfield followed by Savetsky’s husband reportedly using the N-word, to the horror for producers.
Why is Brandi defending Jill Zarin?
Late at night on Tuesday, February 10, Brandi tweeted an inexplicable defense of Zarin.
“OK #1 I have a HUGE crush on BadBunny,” she wrote relatably. “I wanna be his Mrs. Robinson.”
She gushed: “The 1/2 show rocked.” So far so good!
“My friend @Jill Zarin has her own opinion & I don’t agree with it AT ALL,” Brandi acknowledged.
“But opinions aren’t wrong they’re subjective,” she claimed.
“I want to watch Jill on TV explain herself & hopefully learn something,” Brandi expressed.
“Or,” she suggested, “we can just keep watching ‘yes people’ afraid to share.”
As many commenters pointed out in the replies, opinions can cover so many things — from taste in music and dances to pizza toppings to home decor and beyond.
However, Zarin very specifically complained about lyrics that were not in English and about there being “literally no white people” in the show.
Though her statement was factually untrue, that does not make it less racist. It is up to Zarin to interrogate whatever it is within her that leads to this gut response of feeling threatened or excluded when she sees multiple brown people performing. If music and joy upsets you, it probably means that you need to work on yourself.
Is the world a better place when racists speak freely and then get clapback?
To Brandi’s other point, we do see where she’s coming from when she talks about “yes people” who might simply withhold rancid comments instead of sharing them.
After all, people might keep silent about their abhorrent views about how people with brown skin should dance, what language they should incorporate in music, or what the minimum percentage of white people should be in any televised event must be. But will they learn anything?
But … are they actually going to change? Will them speaking out and being challenged actually change anything?
A half-dozen years ago, 2020 saw historic protests and a lot of conversation about long-overdue positive changes in our nation. The years that followed have been an intense and coordinated backlash against all decency, giving rise to once-fringe white nationalists like Charlie Kirk stepping into mainstream conservative spotlights.
If these past few years have taught us anything, perhaps it’s that the world is a better place when racists keep their awful opinions to themselves out of fear of societal judgment. The alternative, where they are unafraid to spew racist vitriol, leads to our nation’s current nightmare.