Crystal Kung Minkoff Says She Felt “Honored” And “Special” Being RHOBH’s First Asian Housewife!

Crystal Kung Minkoff is opening up about joining the cast of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

"I've always watched the show. I've been a fan of it," Minkoff told E! News. "It never occurred to me to be on the show but I've been friends with Kathy [Hilton] for, I don't know, 15 years now and she just called me and said, 'What do you think?'"

While she was "reluctant" at first, Minkoff recalls Hilton saying, "'Why don't we do this together?'" before they both joined the hit series.

"I spent a lot of time with my family. We sort of did the panels with our family and friends," she added. "I really rely on them. We just said, 'Let's do it. What a fun experience.' And it was just that."

Minkoff makes history as RHOBH's first Asian Housewife. Crystal explains why representing Asian Americans is very important to her.

"You can't not think about that," she explained. "For me, it was obviously extremely important to represent Asian-Americans. I feel a massive responsibility for the AAPI community, and hopefully represent it well and inspire the minority fans of the show."

She continued, "But also it's really important to speak to the non-minority fans who watch and to show we're whole people. We're not a monolith of people. But all I could really do is represent myself. I'm one of many, many Asian-Americans. We have our own stories and it's important to share them. "

Minkoff says she immediately got a lot of love and support on social media after her casting was announced.

"That's really what drove me to keep going. Not 'keep going,' but I just felt like this is so much more meaningful than I anticipated from the beginning," she told E! News. "Every day I get a DM or multiple, just girls saying, ‘Thank you for doing this. Now I have someone on TV that looks like me. I've never watched the show but I'm going to watch now.' Those things just go right to my heart because I never even thought about it like that, but then when I think of my childhood growing up, I never saw Asian people on TV. So you know, it's a special thing for me and I feel so honored to be the one to be that person for them."

Photo Credit: Bravo Media/NBCUniversal