Some sad news for O.G. Real Housewives of New York City fans, as well as connoisseurs of a particular kind of Jewish masculinity: Bobby Zarin, the undisputed Fabric King of the Lower East Side and husband to former RHONY star Jill Zarin, died this weekend after a long battle with metastatic thyroid cancer. He was 71.
Bobby Zarin holds the distinction of being perhaps the only character in the history of any Housewives franchise to deserve the title of “Universally Beloved.” While Jill, a status-conscious redhead with socialite aspirations and a Lawng Island accent so thick you could spread it on your first bagel at break-the-fast, vacillated from overbearing but warm Jewish mother to full-on reality show villain, Bobby, a constant presence at her side in the tinted sunglasses and dignified Mob boss fashions he favored, was always calm, always pleasant, always a person even Jill’s enemies seemed happy to see. “This has nothing to do with you, you know I adore you,” was the general preface Bobby would received from Jill’s victims and antagonists, from the legendary Bethenny Frankel (who, whatever her current feelings about her former bestie Jill, tweeted a sweet tribute to Bobby on Sunday, something Jill, many of whose grievances revolved around which of her acquaintances had failed to sufficiently support her on social media, must have appreciated) on down. On a show, or series of shows in which nearly every husband or partner has been dragged into the drama and found wanting (or, in some cases, guilty of much more serious crimes), Bobby somehow transcended it all. Nobody blamed him for Jill’s behavior, or so much as told him, at least not with any real aggression to “stay out of it.”
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