Jessel Taank has called her fellow "The Real Housewives of New York" cast members "cackling hags" in her dry British cadence, labeled Tribeca as an “up-and-coming” neighborhood, and keeps a hit list of all the people who have wronged her: all of which suggest the perfect makings of a Supreme Housewife in training.
As the first-ever Indian housewife across the Housewives Bravoverse, the British-American fashion publicist has become the most interesting player in a cast full of people begging to be seen, reinvented and liked by both the series rabid online fanbase and its casual viewers. In a field of potentially more well-known castmates, like former J.Crew fashion mogul Jenna Lyons, influencer Sai de Silva and real estate agent (and Trump donor) Erin Lichy, Jessel's British charms outshine all the New York City elitism and pick-me behavior that runs through the core of RHONY.
After 13 seasons with the original cast, Bravo, Andy Cohen and long-time fans decided that the original RHONY was no longer cutting it. The show's 14th season returned with an all-new cast and while many braced for a flop of a season, Jessel — who was labeled as "forgettable" by the other cast members — rose from underdog to fan-favorite. She was even given a bit of a villainous edit in the beginning for hating a "Christmas tree"-looking lingerie slip dress given to her by Lyons.
She has now become the most talked-about person on the show with a new Rolling Stone spread and a fanbase who call themselves "Taank Tops." Not only is the former head PR for Michael Kors a rising star because of her personality, but her innate fashion sense and connections. Fans and audiences watched as she threw a party in her Chelsea apartment for some of the most prestigious people in high fashion, like former Paper Magazine editor Mickey Boardman and iconic Vogue editor and columnist Lynn Yaeger.
Throughout the season, characters like Sai and Erin — essentially this cast's Flotsam and Jetsam —antagonize Jessel and tag-team her, accusing her of lying about her background, her husband Pavit and their sex life, insinuating that Pavit's Vietnam travel plans were simply a smoke screen to conceal his plans to sleep with sex workers (a disgusting and racist assumption). During the multiple different arguments she had with Sai and Erin, she never backed down and only ever doubled down, causing Sai and Erin to grow increasingly drained from pouring all their energy into discussing her.
The continuous, pestering conversations surrounding Jessel's sex life with her husband were an extremely weird showing for a female-dominated cast. Many of the "Housewives," many of whom have had multiple children themselves, couldn't empathize with Jessel's (and a lot of women's) struggle with fertility issues and how her IVF journey may have affected her sex drive. They also peppered her with questions about her professional life — ultimately coming after her for saying that she started her fashion career from the ground up, questioning the role of privilege that played a role in her success.
And here is where the Oppression Olympics begin and never end.
For a handful of episodes, the women of the cast begin to use their own traumatic experiences and upbringings as a way to invalidate Jessel's own personal story. Jessel even gives a disclaimer that she grew up in a relatively uncomplicated and stable family. She never claimed to have a worse or more traumatic upbringing than Sai, but that's exactly the way Sai took it. Nuanced conversations about wealth, privilege and nepotism are never even really properly explored because it's easier to attack Jessel for saying she had to work hard for her career than to listen to her story and allow her experience to exist as her own because she lived it — Erin and Sai didn't.
By the end of the season, Jessel is run ragged by the parrots, Sai and Erin, who habitually call her a liar and unimportant. It's in the barrage that Jessel became such a sympathetic character. She never pretended to be anyone that she wasn't in a season and cast so filled with people trying and failing to outshine each other's traumas. Outside of the uncalled-for bullying, Jessel's sarcastic delivery, her eccentric fashions and her seemingly connected status in the New York fashion scene have really cemented her as a star in the making.
