Though Sai De Silva’s “Daddy Warbucks” story that Carole Radziwill brought up on The Real Housewives of New York City Season 16 seemed to come out of left field, she had already recounted her experience with the mystery man a year earlier.
How to Watch
The Real Housewives of New York City airs on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo. Episodes stream next day on Peacock.
As Carole mentioned in RHONY Episode 7, the story originated from Sai’s Substack, Sai Unseen, and she used the August 2025 post to illustrate how you don’t always know what people are hiding, “especially when it’s criminal activity,” as she put it. More specifically, Carole referenced Sai’s experience to push back on the barrage of questions she was “peppering” her with about her past connection to Ghislaine Maxwell.
During the trip to Moskito Island, Sai explained to Carole that she met “Daddy Warbucks” at Scores, i.e. the NYC strip club where she and new castmate Daisy Toye worked together as bartenders in the early 2000s. When Carole asked what happened to him, Sai revealed, “You know what, he was in a Ponzi scheme. He was in this 133-million-dollar Ponzi scheme that I didn’t know [about].”
Seeing Carole’s point, Sai added, “You’re right. You never know who people are. You never know what the f–k they are doing. Anyway, but luckily, like, I had nothing to do with it. I’m glad I never let him buy me the house.”
Who is Sai De Silva’s “Daddy Warbucks”?
On The Real Housewives of New York City After Show, Sai described “Daddy Warbucks” as having been “about 33 years old” when she met him at Scores, adding that he “worked in trading currency.” Though she wrote in one Substack post that they “dated,” Sai clarified on the RHONY After Show, “I never kissed Daddy Warbucks. I never slept with him. Nothing ever happened between us, which is why he dumped me.”
Recalling how they first met, she added, “He would sit at my bar all the time. He would get upset if he didn’t get enough attention from me, so he would always, like, come in and pay me extra if I would just sit and talk to him only. And we ended up developing a relationship.”
As for why she’d given him the Annie-inspired nickname, Sai wrote in her 2025 Substack post, titled, “My Sugar Daddy Had Tourette’s,” that she started calling the man “Daddy Warbucks” because “he shelled out cash like it grew on trees.”
RELATED: Where Sai De Silva and David Craig Stand Today Amid Their Ongoing Divorce
What happened between Sai De Silva and “Daddy Warbucks”?
According to Sai, she quit her bartending job at Scores less than two weeks after meeting “Daddy Warbucks” and moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. “He gave me an envelope before I left, and [there] was like $10,000 in it,” she said on the After Show, before going on to detail how he’d also bought her a car when she arrived in L.A.
Sai added that “Daddy Warbucks” would frequently visit her on the West Coast, where she discovered that he had Tourette syndrome.
As Sai noted in her Substack post, he “would go on to become obsessed” with her, before adding her signature sign-off, “But that story is for another day…”
Is Sai De Silva still in touch with “Daddy Warbucks”?
No. As Sai shared on the RHONY After Show, “I miss him, and I would like him to come back. But I’m sure he’s broke.”
RELATED: Sai Reveals How She Found Out David Filed for Divorce: “The Biggest Betrayal” (EXCLUSIVE)
How did Carole Radziwill react to Sai De Silva’s “Daddy Warbucks” story?
After Sai added the “Ponzi scheme” detail, which was not included in her Substack post, during RHONY‘s Oct. 20 episode, Carole remarked to a producer, “Wait a minute, so you’re telling me that you had a very similar experience with Daddy Warbucks, not knowing that he was involved in some crime, as I had with Ghislaine Maxwell? … I don’t need to be judged by anybody, and certainly not from somebody who had a very similar experience.”
Don’t miss details on how to watch and stream the RHONY After Show for Season 16.
