For the first time, Dorinda Medley is confirming being fired by Bravo.

It’s a shame, too, she says — because she’d been hoping for a redemption arc.

This week, Dorinda Medley was a guest on Bethenny Frankel’s Just B podcast.

Taking in her (for now) final season of The Real Housewives of New York, Dorinda is the first to admit that she “did not have a good season this year.”

She is not alone in that assessment … but not everyone understands why she was in such a foul mood all season.

Dorinda emphasized to Bethenny that she is “not going to make excuses for it.”

“But,” she explains, “I was doing real.”

“You know, that’s where I was at that time,” Dorinda continues. That sounds appropriate, given the name of the franchise.

Dorinda confessed to Andy that she had felt “overwhelmed” when they spoke at the Season 12 Reunion special.

In fact, in retrospect, she has come to believe that she should have taken off Season 12.

To Bethenny, she reiterates that this would have been the wiser choice.

Bethenny, of course, left the show right before Season 12 began airing, back in August 2019.

“I’ll be honest with you, I felt very, very scared going into the season,” Dorinda expresses.

She felt scared “because not only was my life very intense with all the things …”

Dorinda lists those frightening things: “… you know, the house, my father, broken rib, breaking up with John [Mahdessian].”

“It was like, wow. … I’m not putting any blame,” she notes, “but you know, when you left, I was really in a mode of coming back and being a powerful couple.”

“Then, you know, I came back and I was sort of a toothpick in an ocean,” Dorinda laments.

“I didn’t get my voice out correctly,” Dorinda freely acknowledges.

Bethenny cannot help but agree.

“And you get in over your skis,” she tells her friend. “You drink, something happens, you say something.”

“And then you’re in your head about what you just said,” Bethenny notes, “but the show must go on,”

“You’re still filming, there’s still cameras,” Bethenny explains. “So that’s what is challenging, and that’s where I do feel you.”

She notes that, in most cases, Housewives who screw up get a comeback.

“And, listen, everybody always gets their resurrection season,” Bethenny suggests.

“So the next season, the person is super cautious,” she describes, “they got burned, everything they did wrong the season before … “

But if Dorinda gets a resurrection season, it won’t be Season 13.

Dorinda confesses that she had really been “looking forward to coming back this year.”

She had hoped to have a redemption arc.

Dorinda could have that now, because she is “in a good place.”

“Listen, I had a rough season, but that’s what we do as Housewives,” she states.

“We have good seasons,” Dorinda acknowledges. “We have bad seasons.”

“We come back and we change it up,” she adds.

“And listen, I was looking forward to coming back this year,” Dorinda affirms.

She expresses: “I was looking forward to having that moment.”

Notably, this is the first time that she has actually confirmed that, yes, Bravo didn’t ask her back.

“I was ready to go back, I was excited to go back, I was planning to back,” Dorinda confirms.

“And I thought I would have a great year,” she says, “I wasn’t given that option.”

Not all Housewives admit when Bravo gives them the axe.

“They’re calling it a pause, which I don’t really … for me, I’m an old-fashioned girl,” Dorinda characterizes herself.

For analogy, she offers: “If you’re not waitressing and getting paid, you’re not waitressing.”

“At the end of the day, it was a mutual ‘no,'” Dorinda states.

Dorinda says that, ultimately, this was for the best.

“It’s released me to do other things,” she notes.

Dorinda concludes: “It’s put me in a really much saner place.”

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Almost as soon as news dropped that she had “quit,” it was reported that Dorinda Medley was fired from RHONY.

Now, a new report explains why Bravo had to cut her loose.

According to what sources tell Page Six, there is a specific issue that prompted Dorinda Medley’s firing.

Yes, firing — not the same as the initial, more dignified reports that she had quit.

According to insiders, Dorinda was given the axe because she had become a “mean drunk.”

The report clarifies that this is not an accustion that Dorinda had become a “drunk,” meaning an alcoholic.

Rather, that when she did choose to drink, her behavior was hostile and confrontational.

Up to a point, that can make for great television — but only up to a point.

“That’s just not where they want the show to go,” the insider explains.

Apparently, production wanted to distance themselves from her pattern of abrasive behavior.

Instead, they reasoned, they could find a new, fresh castmate for the other Housewives.

 “In this climate of social justice and cancel culture,” the source claims, “she was not a good representative of the show or the network.”

Obviously, cancel culture is a mostly meaningless buzzword.

To some people, it refers to gleeful internet mob behavior. To others, it refers to people facing consequences for their behavior.

In this case, it may simply mean that production feared that Dorinda might go too far while drunk and earn backlash at the show.

There may have been things that we did not see — things that were edited out.

Sometimes, what goes on during filming leaks. Production may want to avoid having a particularly nasty incident go public.

Dorinda learned the stunning news of her firing while she was filming The $100,000 Pyramid for ABC.

She opted to spin it as quitting, which many other Housewives have done over the years.

Officially, Bravo usually allows this without comment. That doesn’t stop sources from spilling the alleged tea, however.

What is really interesting here is that apparently, Dorinda could have fixed this.

“If she’d have said [at the end of the season], ‘Look — I’ve been depressed and that’s why I’m acting like this,’” the insider begins.

The source continues: “Or, ‘I miss my [husband, Richard, who died in 2011],’ and said she’d work on it, I think it would have been different.”

Instead, apparently, the other Housewives were astonished … because Dorinda did nothing of the sort.

She did not, per these reports, acknowledge that she had crossed any lines with her behavior.

Bad behavior followed by a vow to change could have given her a real path to continue on the show.

Some fans have asked, and not unfairly, why Luann wasn’t banished from the series for her drinking — including the incident that led to her arrest.

Well, according to insiders, the explanation is simple.

Luann’s drinking may have turned her life upside down, but it wasn’t effing with the vibe and tone of the show. Dorinda’s was.

Of course, Bravo has not confirmed this report — or even claims that Dorinda was fired, and that she did not quit.

We don’t expect Dorinda to confirm anything of the sort any time soon, either.

Dorinda is moving on, and we wish her the best — in her career and also in terms of her personal struggles.

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It’s the end of an era at Bravo.

After five years as a certified fan favorite, Dorinda Medley announced today that she’s stepping down from her role as one of the Real Housewives of New York City.

“What a journey this has been. I have laughed…

As much as viewers have enjoyed Dorinda Medley’s explosive drama on The Real Housewives of New York City, she’s only human.

Watching her grief play out on screen is hard for her, and Dorinda admits that she recently reevaluated her entire life.

Last week, viewers of The Real Housewives of New York City saw Dorinda Medley in a very vulnerable moment.

She was mourning her late husband. The months since that was filmed have not worn away her raw feelings.

“Yes,” Dorinda confirms to Us Weekly. “Absolutely it was a tough episode to watch.”

Of course. You can’t help but relive what you were feeling in the moment as you see yourself on screen.

Dorinda is the first to acknowledge that being a Real Housewife is a complicated thing.

“But I think the thing is — that there’s a lot of things going on,” Dorina expresses.

She quickly adds: “And obviously we can’t break the fourth wall.”

That is reserved for very special events — like Denise Richards’ antics this season on RHOBH.

“There’s a lot of things coming up,” Dorinda warns.

That means that we have not seen her whole story play out this season. Not yet.

“And,” she continues, “a lot of things, like, that I am going through myself.”

Dorinda shares that these are things “that are making me definitely on edge and uptight.”

“I think I say it at the winery,” Dorinda recalls.

She expresses: “I just feel vulnerable and scared and overwhelmed.”

Dorinda then adds: “[I] thought, ‘I can’t do this. I just can’t take another thing.’”

When it rains, it pours is a somewhat callous expression, but it is an apt one.

If she is feeling so besieged dealing with things, including a flood at her Blue Stone Manor, why air it for the cameras?

“I’m in this process,” Dorinda explains. 

“I decided to be a housewife,” she acknowledges.

“And,” Dorinda states, “you have to be a housewife [in] good times [and] bad times.”

As far as she is concerned, she can’t opt out when the going gets tough.

“That’s part of the process,” Dorinda reasons. 

“That’s the journey that you need to take the viewer on,” she affirms.

“And then,” Dorinda adds, “they can take and do what they want with it.”

We’ve watched Dorinda deal with the flood that we mentioned and feud with Tinsley Mortimer.

Dorinda also reveals that she’d had a broken rib before filming began — ouch!

The incident prompted her to reevaluate her life.

“I literally would cry to my mother, ‘I don’t know what’s going on. Nothing’s working out anymore,’” Dorinda admits. 

“And,” Dorinda recalls, “she would say to me, ‘It’s exactly where it should be. There is a reason. Well OK, you broke your rib. Guess that means you got to slow down.’”

She then jokes: “My tagline should have been, ‘I’m not only reconstructing my house, I’m reconstructing myself.’”

“I felt like I had to ask permission to do a lot of my life,” Dorinda expresses.

“Now,” she continues, “I’m like, ‘I’m doing it. If you don’t like it it’s too bad.’” 

Dorinda adds: “And also, two, it’s made me a lot more intolerant to any bulls–t.”

That doesn’t mean that she can’t wade into a little drama. 

Earlier this month, viewers saw Dorinda issue a challenge to Tinsley.

To be fair, Leah McSweeney played a role, but Dorinda took Leah’s words and used them to create a scene. It happens.

View Slideshow: The Real Housewives of New York City: Everything We Know About Season 12