Jenna Lyons, cast member of the revamped Real Housewives of New York, appeared on The View on Wednesday and revealed that her hair and teeth are fake due to a rare genetic condition.
The openly queer reality star lives with incontinentia pigmenti (or Bloch-Sulzberger syndrome) which is an inherited condition that affects the skin and other systems in the body. The condition can cause dental abnormalities, missing nails, and bald patches on the scalp.
“All my teeth are fake,” she explained. “I paid a lot of money for them. My hair is also fake. I can take it off. It’s like a hat, it’s not a wig.”
“My eyelashes are fake. I have no eyebrows, and I also have scars all over my skin."
The former president and creative director of J Crew told the hosts of The View that she got into fashion because she wanted to “look better.”
“I was really conscious,” she confided. “It’s one of the reasons I went into fashion. I wanted to look better. I was constantly trying to find ways to fit in.”
Lyons’ condition led her to creating her own line of false eyelashes called Love Seen because she was unhappy with the unrealistic fake lashes that were available at the time.
“When I was doing a lot of red carpets, I kept trying to find eyelashes that looked good and they were just huge on me,” she recalled. “I couldn’t wear them.”
The former fashion designer continued, “I remember talking to my makeup artist Troi Ollivierre and I was going on Oprah show actually and Oprah walked into the green room. He looked at me and he looked at her and he’s like, ‘Get back in that chair. We’re going to put some lashes on you and get some extensions.’”
“Because she’s got a presence and I look like a wet rat,” she joked, adding that she “couldn’t find what I wanted, so I created a line of lashes that aren’t as over-the-top.”
Lyons, the first openly gay New York Housewife, also spoke about being publicly outed by the New York PostNew York Post in 2011 following her divorce from husband Vincent Mazeau.
At the time she wasn’t ready to come out to the world and explained that it was particularly “hard” because she hadn’t come out to her family and friends yet. The reality star said she was “so overwhelmed with everything that was happening in my life” that when she was asked to confirm if she was a lesbian she “just said yes.”
“I hadn’t really been in the public eye that much, it was all still new for me, and I didn’t expect anyone to care about what I was doing in my personal life and all of a sudden everyone cared,” she said.
At the time Lyons was dating Courtney Crangi. They have since separated, and she is now dating photographer Cass Bird. She explained that she was shocked when the New York Post called her PR team and asked if she “would like to confirm or deny” the story.
“I just said, ‘confirm’ and it was like an out-of-body experience.”
The Real Housewives of New York City season 14 airs Sundays at 9 pm ET on Bravo.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
