'Real Housewife' faces backlash for outing co-star's bipolar disorder

Any Real Housewives fans out there? I'm not ashamed to admit I sometimes (with shocking frequency) set aside my Wall Street Journal and Brendon Burchard books on high-performance business habits to engage in a slightly less lofty use of my downtime. For those of you who don't watch The Real Housewives of New York (RHONY) on Bravo, suffice it to say the show is about a group of incredibly rich women doing lavish things while sometimes engaging in petty arguments and competitiveness. A recent episode, however, yielded an unexpected employment law lesson on mental illness and privacy.

Unsavory comments smack of ADA violation

Ramona Singer, the self-appointed queen of RHONY who has been on the show for all 12 seasons, spoke on camera about newcomer Leah McSweeney's bipolar disorder. Specifically, Ramona was filmed telling another co-star, "I found out [Leah]'s bipolar and she's on medication."

Ramona, who has not gotten along with Leah for the majority of season 12, told the Bravo cameras that her discovery that Leah is bipolar "explains it all" in a thinly veiled dig insinuating that Leah's alleged misbehavior can be attributed to mental illness. Not surprisingly, Ramona faced considerable backlash on social media for gossiping about Leah's mental health issues and outing her on camera, prompting Ramona to issue a public apology.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (or the Rehabilitation Act for federal employees and applicants), disability discrimination occurs when an employer: