Leah McSweeney, one of the former Real Housewives of New York stars, blasted NYC Mayor Eric Adams over the city’s surging crime rates.
During a Wednesday appearance on “Fox & Friends,” the 41-year-old designer told co-host Ainsley Earhardt about why she is ready to flee from the Big Apple.
“This breaks my heart because New York City is the best city in the world, but it is not safe right now, and it is especially not safe for women,” she remarked.
She discussed a scary encounter her teenage daughter recently had while she was traveling with friends on the subway.
Leah McSweeney said she is leaving New York a.s.a.p. pic.twitter.com/OyXv94nyxI
— Dee Dee Weeks (@DeeDeeWeeks) April 3, 2024
“A man came in and sat across from them and said, ‘Shut the blank up, or I’m going to kill you and turn you into a pile of meat on the floor,'” McSweeney detailed.
“She was scared to tell me because she knows I’m going to be nervous… she doesn’t want to make me nervous, but she was scared.”
The ex-Real Housewife also noted that she saw someone “smoking crack for breakfast” in the middle of Times Square this week.
McSweeney said the person was “just smoking crack on the street, not even trying to hide it,” in broad daylight.
She also lamented that due to the legalization of marijuana, there are so many people smoking cannabis out in the open that she feels “like I’m getting a second hand high.”
The former Bravo star knocked local politicians, including New York City Mayor Eric Adams for insisting that the area is as safe as it has ever been.
“The worst thing is we’re being gaslit by the politicians who tell us that it’s actually safer than ever, and it’s not. I’m sorry, there’s no way,” she stated.
“I’m out there. I’m on the train. I’m walking around. It’s not safe.”
She said that she hopes “things turn around” in what she considers “the best city in the world,” then took a shot at Adams.
“The people who are in charge do not care. Mayor Adams is at Zero Bond, he’s at Casa Cipriani. Help us,” McSweeney added.
She plans to head down south to Florida if conditions in the city do not improve and said her daughter is scouting out colleges in the state.
Fellow Real Housewives of New York alum Bethenny Frankel admitted that she was one of the many women who have recently been punched in the face at random.
She initially made the revelation in a comment on a TikTok video made by a college student who was also hit in the face as part of the disturbing trend.
Bethenny Frankel describes getting ‘punched in the face’ in ‘wild’ NYC attack. pic.twitter.com/jTBDo2VbJb
— Page Six (@PageSix) March 29, 2024
“This is insane [because] this happened to me a few months ago but I was embarrassed to say,” Frankel replied. “I was on the UWS [Upper West Side]. Insane. I was taking video of a bakery.”
She made her own TikTok video a few days later to explain how her assault by a homeless man happened.
“I was in New York City looking for an apartment and I stopped at this cute little deli-bakery tiny place,” the Bravo star detailed.
“I walked in and I was shooting the baked goods and as I turned around — I mean, the place was the size of a bathroom — I turned around to walk out the door, and this guy punched me.”
She clarified that it wasn’t a closed fist punch, but he still hit her in the face.
“I was completely stunned,” Frankel recalled. “I walked outside and my driver, who is also security, I looked at him and gestured over to this man, this homeless man, to explain to him that I’d just been hit.”
She said that she didn’t want to provoke the guy “even more,” and when her driver began to confront the man she stopped him and asked to leave.
Afterwards, she sent a message to her real estate broker and informed him that she did not want to see anymore apartments in the area because “this city’s insane.”
“I attributed this to the crime that was happening during the pandemic,” she concluded.
“Little did I know that this would become this trend of people being hit and even when I commented in that post, I didn’t know that it had been multiple people.”