Former star of “The Real Housewives of New York” Heather Thomson is in hot water after she posted and later deleted a picture of herself posing with a monkey figurine.

Thomson and her husband of 20 years, Jonathan Schindler, recently visited the Houdini Estate in Los Angeles to attend a wedding, and she posed in front of the “Monkey Room” located on the estate. Unfortunately, the handles on the door of the room resemble a monkey in shackles dressed in period clothing, and Thomson posed for a picture while opening the door. Social media users deemed the figure as evocative of a “house slave.”

The 53-year-old later realized her mistake after fans took note in the comment section and she deleted the post, which was captioned, “Happy Holidays! #ugh#missedit#houdiniestate #ucwhatuc#happyholidays#nothinmorenothinless.”

All About the Tea caught a screenshot of Thomson’s post before she deleted it, and the outlet incorrectly identified the money handle as a “black slave in shackles” in its caption. The handle is actually a monkey wearing clothes the social media users claimed were meant to evoke the dress worn by enslaved persons who worked as domestics. Thomson was all smiles in the picture while sporting a shiny gold dress.

After her post disappeared from her page, another appeared featuring two images. The first features Thomson in the same olive green dress from the wedding and her husband joined her in the second.

However, many were shocked to Thomson retreat and return so quickly back to Instagram as if no one would notice her now-deleted photo. In another post, she wrote in all capital letters, “She mustve lost her mind.” Another fan replied, “It’s 2023. We all should know and do better.” One fan echoed the sentiment and wrote, “Good call, hopefully an apology is forthcoming.”

A handful thanked the reality star for taking the post down, while others pressed her for a thorough explanation about why she posted the original image.

In response to those defending Thomson, one wrote, “Y’all it doesn’t matter if “it’s a Monkey”. It’s clearly stylized to look humanoid and the bars do look like shackles. Also, black people have historically been represented as monkeys in racist artwork. She’s spot on that this is a racist symbol.”

Thomson was on “The Real Housewives of New York” for three seasons before leaving in 2015. According to Page Six, Thomson claimed that the storylines on the show weren’t real and spilled the beans after her former cast mate, Ramona Singer, allegedly stated that there “shouldn’t have black people on the show” after bumping heads with the series first Black cast member, attorney Eboni K. Williams.

“I was there and I heard Ramona say that and I freaked out,” Thomson said. She also took issue with producers regarding other incidents such as voicing concerns about a cast member’s excessive drinking. She added that she no longer wanted to be on a show and environment that doesn’t empower women.

“I went to the show because [producers say they] want to empower women, but at the end of the day they actually do the total reverse of that,” she said. “They’re showing women behaving badly, and at each other’s throats.”

Thomson is the founder of Yummie shapewear and once worked as a fashion designer, for stars such as Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé, and Sean “Diddy” Combs.