Jessel Taank and Pavit Randhawa’s marriage was a hot topic on season 14 of The Real Housewives of New York City, but the couple recently proved that they know each other much better than their costars seem to think.
Jessel and her husband joined Us Weekly for “The Not-So-Newly Married Game” and aced nearly every question — at least in spirit. When asked where they had their first date, they named different restaurants, but they knew it happened at a sushi joint.
“It was a while ago,” Pavit said, defending the duo’s slightly mixed up response. Jessel chimed in to add, “It was a long time ago! Seventeen years now.”
The twosome were slightly more in sync when it was time to name the most romantic thing Pavit has ever done for Jessel. The couple agreed that it was the time they slipped away for a getaway to Santorini, Greece.
“It was very early into our relationship,” Jessel recalled. “This guy — the wingman, the points guy, whatever you want to call him — had somehow managed to book a first class trip to Greece. … We had just started dating. It was like, Virgin Airlines, upper class.”
Jessel thought Pavit might propose during the trip, but he said there was no chance of that happening. “I had no intention of proposing that trip,” he said as Jessel added, “He just wanted a free vacay.”
The couple weren’t quite in agreement on who said “I love you” first, but Pavit was absolutely certain that his wife’s favorite reality TV show is the U.K. edition of Love Island.
“It’s such garbage TV,” Pavit joked. “It’s so bad.”
While RHONY fans saw Pavit and Jessel happily agree that Pavit could take a solo trip to Vietnam for bánh mì, there may be conflict in their future surrounding an offending item in Pavit’s closet. When asked to name which item in her husband’s wardrobe she’d like to throw out, Jessel was quick to mention his yellow UCLA T-shirt “with holes” in it.
“I’m not getting rid of my yellow UCLA T-shirt!” Pavit exclaimed. “It’s a perfect, comfortable shirt. It’s good quality.”
Jessel, however, begged to differ. “It’s disgusting,” she said. “It looks like a moth went to town.”
Earlier this year, Jessel told Us that she and Pavit “live a very unstructured life” together — which may be one reason they can playfully rib each other about hole-y T-shirts.
“We are two individuals that are married, but I am happily doing my stuff and he is very happily doing his stuff,” she explained in October. “If he wants to do something, I will never hold him back, because that’s when I think you start seeing friction in relationships, is when you start being controlling or stifling his character, his personality or his passion to travel and do stuff. So, I’ve always been very supportive and vice versa. If I’m like, ‘I need to go on a girls trip,’ he might give me some trouble for five minutes, but at the end of the day, I’m going to do what I want to do.”
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
