3rd Ward Swangin
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EXCLUSIVE: How RHONY star Eboni Williams claimed she was self-made but let her megabucks fiancé pay for her ritzy pad, had her lawyer's license suspended for non-payment and was charged with shoplifting a pair of $245 Stuart Weitzman pumps
By Laura Collins, Chief Investigative Reporter For Dailymail.com11:23 EDT 05 Aug 2021 , updated 11:23 EDT 05 Aug 2021
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By Laura Collins, Chief Investigative Reporter For Dailymail.com11:23 EDT 05 Aug 2021 , updated 11:23 EDT 05 Aug 2021
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- 32 comments
- DailyMail.com can reveal filming for the RHONY season 13 reunion has been postponed 'indefinitely' as the rift between Eboni Williams and the cast deepens
- Williams has drawn criticism and been branded 'preachy' and 'woke' for foisting a ratings-withering agenda of race and social justice onto the reality show
- But several sources told DailyMail.com that the public persona she's pushing today bears little resemblance to the life that she has led to this point
- The 37-year-old was engaged to financial big-shot Steven Glenn, 53, the managing director, CFO and COO at Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm
- She initially presented herself as a woman torn between forging a career and longing for family, but sources say she showed little to no interest in her ex's kids
- Source said she also claimed to be self-made while sitting in the three-bedroom apartment in New York's Four Seasons residences paid for by her then fiancé
- Williams also considered herself a 'disruptor' while working as a Fox News contributor but is alleged have supported Trump's wall
- In 2002, an 18-year-old Williams was detained at a North Carolina mall for trying to steal a $245 pair of Stuart Weitzman pumps
Earlier last month we revealed that filming for the season 13 reunion, which had been due to take place on August 5, had been delayed.
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Now, DailyMail.com has learned, that producers have postponed the filming 'indefinitely,' because the rift between Williams and key cast members has grown so toxic, they fear there is 'no going forward and no coming back.'
One well-placed production source said: 'At this point they could just shut it down. Eboni's saying she's traumatized; the rest of the ladies are just shocked.
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DailyMail.com can reveal filming for the RHONY season 13 reunion has been postponed 'indefinitely' as the rift between Eboni Williams and her co-stars deepens
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The 37-year-old - who claims to be self-made - was engaged to financial big-shot Steven Glenn, 53, Managing Director, CFO and COO at Warburg Pincus, a private equity partnership (pictured together in 2017) for three and a half years
'I don't know how they sit down together and figure this out. I don't know if it's even possible.'
Williams, 37, has drawn harsh criticism and been branded 'preachy' and 'woke' for foisting a ratings withering agenda of race and social justice onto the frothy reality TV staple.
But, in the weeks since filming wrapped, the newcomer has kicked back comparing the women to 'white supremacists' and telling USA Today that they treated her as 'less than human.'
She has sparked further outrage by blaming the season's poor performance on production and editing.
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Glenn's firm has invested more than $94billion in 940 companies in the 50 years since its inception
Doubling down on her on-screen choices, Williams told Insider: 'As long as I hold the apple, I'm going to use the platform according to my discretion and my discretion is that they were allowed to have an all-white, pretty ridiculous f***ing show for 12 years, that I enjoyed too! But now I'm here…Imma talk about Black excellence all day.'
Series stalwarts Luann de Lesseps, 56 ,and Ramona Singer, 64, have been left 'reeling,' show insiders say.
One explained: '[The women] were under attack and the network was shocked. She has put everyone in a really s****y position.
'What makes it even harder to stomach is the level of her hypocrisy.'
Because according to several well-placed sources who spoke with DailyMail.com, the public persona that Williams is pushing today bears little resemblance to the life that she has led to this point.
DailyMail.com can reveal that the man to whom Williams was engaged when she was first cast in the show is financial big-shot Steven Glenn, 53, Managing Director, CFO and COO at Warburg Pincus, a private equity partnership that has invested more than $94billion in 940 companies in the 50 years since its inception.
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The divorced father of three lives in an idyllic $2million house in New Jersey (pictured). Sources revealed Williams showed little to no interest in her ex-fiancé's children and did not engage in their lives - despite having presented herself as a woman torn between forging a career and longing for family
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Eboni K. Williams and Steven Glenn gave a joint donation to Safe Horizon - a nonprofit supporting domestic violence victims - in 2018
The divorced father of three sons ages 21, 18, and 14 lives in an idyllic $2million house in New Jersey.
And while she initially presented herself as a woman torn between forging a career and longing for family, DailyMail.com has learned that she showed little to no interest in her ex-fiancé's children and did not engage in their lives in the three and a half years they were together.
At an introductory brunch at Sonja's townhouse in the season's opening episode Williams told the women that seeing her ex with his children really made her understand that 'there is nothing like that parental love, that bond.'
She waxed lyrical about 'this beautiful legacy' but according to one insider a person could 'count on the fingers of one hand' the number of soccer games or events to which Williams showed up during her relationship with Glenn.
The source said: 'The kids barely knew her, and she barely knew them. She just wasn't engaged in that part of his life at all.
'They really weren't a New Jersey couple. She didn't really engage with his life there; they were far more about New York.'
The relationship had foundered before filming even began.
According to Williams, she ended the engagement when she got Covid at the beginning of the pandemic and Glenn chose to quarantine close to his kids in New Jersey while she remained alone in the city.
'When he saw family, he didn't see me,' she said by way of explanation.
However, one familiar with the situation raised an eyebrow at this version and said: 'The quarantine thing was just a convenient public excuse. The relationship wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't really heading towards marriage.'
But then, according to several sources, Williams is not one to let reality - or others - stand in the way of her brand.
She is a woman who spoke with pride of being self-made while sitting in the three-bedroom apartment in New York's Four Seasons residences paid for by her then fiancé, and whose 'type' according to one associate is 'rich white, Jewish men.'
EBONI WILLIAMS HAS HER SAY: NEWCOMER DENIES FALLING OUT WITH CAST MEMBERS
Eboni Williams 'wholeheartedly disputed' talk of a rift when DailyMail.com reached out to her for comment and claimed that any questions raised about her were part of a 'systemic attack on the credibility of black women.'
In an exclusive and wide-ranging talk, Williams told DailyMail.com that it 'simply was not true' that she had fallen foul of her cast-members despite numerous extremely well-placed sources telling DailyMail.com that she has.
According to Williams: 'I just finished taping my last confessional interview and shared some wonderful words with Leah McSweeney and hugs and kisses.'
She said that she spoke with McSweeney five out of seven days a week, always took Sonja Morgan's calls, and had dinner with Ramona Singer just last week.
But when asked if she had dinner or spoke with Luann de Lesseps she said: 'Nope. Nope.'
Asked if De Lesseps was somebody with whom she was in touch Williams said: 'No, not at this point in time.'
Williams and De Lesseps famously first came to blows when the women visited De Lesseps's house in Sag Harbor early in the season and De Lesseps took issue with Williams's assertion that she was 'the most educated person at the table.'
Where she has been criticized for 'lecturing' the other women '24/7' Williams said simply: 'Do I wish we lived in a utopia where racial micro and macro aggression, aspects of white fragility and white supremacy and black oppression didn't exist? Yes. I wish we lived in that utopia...[but] that's not what we as a society have to deal with.
'I don't feel burdened [by speaking to those issues]. I think I get to do that, not that I have to do that.'
According to Williams she is 'uniquely provisioned' to do so, due to her 'classical education, experience as a journalist, experience as a lawyer, and natural temperament.'
She is, she said, someone who 'doesn't lean heavy into emotion.'
Williams defended her history at Fox, rejecting the notion that she had left amid any ill-feeling.
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Williams and De Lesseps famously first came to blows when the women visited De Lesseps's house in Sag Harbor early in the season
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Eboni and Luann clash
She said that she had instead asked to be released from her contract with America's most-watched cable network so that she, 'could go onto pursue other interests.'
Addressing her past shoplifting Williams said she was 'proud' to be a product of the deferred prosecution process.
This meant that when she was charged with stealing one pair of Stuart Weitzman pumps in 2002 the judge could use his discretion and dismiss the case as it was a first-time, non-violent offense.
Commenting on the fact that she let her license to practice lapse in 2011 when she stopped paying the dues required to maintain it she said: 'It's not improper [to have let it lapse]. If I purported to practice [it would be] but I have voluntarily withdrawn from the practice of law since 2011.'
When speaking to camera about her level of education following her Sag Harbor set-to with De Lesseps, Williams claimed: 'I've been practicing law since I'm 23.'
She practiced between the ages of 23 and 27.
Williams told DailyMail.com: 'Because of the optics quite frankly I'm probably two weeks out of re-instating the license. I'll be active and reinstated in two weeks.'
And she did not rule out the possibility of returning to practice one day saying: 'Never say never. I am a believer, and I will always lean into my spiritual gifts and do work that inspires community and people.'
To that end, Williams said, she was 'proud' of how she had presented on her first season of RHONY and insisted that she received a great deal of positive feedback, adding: 'It's not on y'all's page on the Daily Mail or Page Six but if you go to other outlets, you will see what I see.'
She said: 'From a broader context there is a systemic attack on the credibility of black women in America right now. I'm not sure if you're aware of that.'
Williams went onto compare herself to Olympians, Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and hammer-thrower Gwen Berry. She said: 'I feel like this line of commentary is right in alignment with [what has happened to them].
'It's seeking to indict my credibility as a lawyer, as a co-worker, as a fiancé, as a woman…really I'm one of the most credible people you'll ever come across.'
As for her future on the show she said: 'I'm not going anywhere. I will never be silenced. If that's the best they [haters] got, they gotta do a lot better.'
