The Real Housewives of New York

[MamaC]

Kelly Bensimon: ‘I’m Not Proud’ of the Way I Acted - PEOPLE TV Watch

The Real Housewives of New York City
Kelly Bensimon: ‘I’m Not Proud’ of the Way I Acted
May 23, 2010


Kelly Bensimon wants to be clear about one thing. She’s not crazy — and that wasn’t a nervous breakdown you saw on The Real Housewives of New York City Thursday, as she blew up at her costars during a trip to the Virgin Islands.

“It was a nervous breakthrough,” Bensimon tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview appearing in next week’s issue.

“I learned don’t do it. Don’t be around people who don’t like you. I will never engage them like that ever again. I learned my lesson, as should everyone.”

The lesson involved comes as a result of what Bensimon, 42, calls the group’s “systematic bullying” of her throughout the vacation, during which she and costars Ramona Singer, Alex McCord, Sonja Morgan and her former rival Bethenny Frankel were sequestered on a yacht.

“It was four people against one. I go on this trip, I’m trying to be open. I have no expectations. I’m trying to be nice to these women who clearly don’t like me,” Bensimon says. “But the minute I got on the trip, they went after me. It was constant.”

Being away from her children Sea, 12, and Teddy, 9, was an added stressor. The isolated maritime setting didn’t help much either. “It’s an awkward position. Normally you’d be like, ‘I’m not dealing with this… I’m leaving,’” she says. “But this is not a situation where you can leave. You have to stay and you have to police them otherwise then you’re not a part of what’s going on and then they go off.”

But fans shouldn’t judge Bensimon based on this one episode. “This is me being a Housewife on a television show,” she says. “This is not me in my real life.”

---------------

Note to Kelly: We must not have been watching the same show. I saw YOU arguing with the ladies. I saw YOU trying to start stuff up with Bethenny. I never saw any of the other ladies gang up on you. Seriously, Kelly, the time has come for someone to see that you do get the help you so need. And while I am at it, don't think for a NY second that Jill is your new BFF.

[Omar_X]

Note to Kelly: We must not have been watching the same show. I saw YOU arguing with the ladies. I saw YOU trying to start stuff up with Bethenny. I never saw any of the other ladies gang up on you. Seriously, Kelly, the time has come for someone to see that you do get the help you so need. And while I am at it, don't think for a NY second that Jill is your new BFF.

I agree, Kelly was the one on offensive and the others were just trying to contain her as pleasantly as possible. She just wouldn't leave it alone, came back for a couple of renewed attacks after leaving the scene, and was doing all of the name calling.

“It was four people against one. I go on this trip, I’m trying to be open. I have no expectations. I’m trying to be nice to these women who clearly don’t like me,” Bensimon says. “But the minute I got on the trip, they went after me. It was constant.”...The isolated maritime setting didn’t help much either. “It’s an awkward position. Normally you’d be like, ‘I’m not dealing with this… I’m leaving,’” she says. “But this is not a situation where you can leave. You have to stay and you have to police them otherwise then you’re not a part of what’s going on and then they go off.”

Yes it was. All she had to do was tell Ramona, or better yet - the captain of the yacht or Bravo staff, that she was not comfortable being there and wanted to be put ashore at the next port where she could catch a plane home. From there she could have segregated/barricaded herself in her cabin until the next morning and that would have been that. Always the victim, clearly this was not how Kelly handled it.

The rest of the girls and their admirable restraint aside, in this article she offered not a single word of thanks to Sonja for trying to help her even when Kelly was crapping all over her with the thoroughness and precision of an industrial paint gun.

Judging by the number of sources where she has already announced in the last 24 hours that she is not crazy and that was not a breakdown, it seems two things are clear:

1. Yes! It was.
   
2. She has hired a team of publicists to try to spin this thing for her. I think that would be the only place she could get a glittering jewel of stupidity like, “It was a nervous breakthrough."

If anyone reads the People article on the link provided by MamaC, be sure to scroll down and read the remarks by GWEN1960. Either Ms. Paltrow has lept to Kelly's defense or the Pino is flowing late at Kelly's house.

It just dawned on me Kelly knew all season that this episode was coming and had all this time to put together a well thought out, convincing, and perhaps even humanizing/sympathetic spin strategy, yet look at what has been offered in the last 24 hours. Maybe she is handling all of the spin/damage control herself after all.

Ok, continue Kelly's poorly executed spin control campaign in: 3, 2, 1...

[norealityhere]

Depending on the terms of her contract Bravo may or may not have been responsible for seeing to her medical care at all. After all, she IS an adult woman, who claims to be well traveled, wealthy, and would be more than cable of laying in her own preparations for any eventuality. She's not someone's teenager they borrowed to shoot a couple of epis in the islands like The Bradys, and took full responsibility for her until delivered back to mom and dad's doorstep. Now, on a human compassion level would I hope they did what they could to get her some help and comfort, up to the point that she wanted it, needed it, and was willing to accept it? Absolutely!

We have to remember though, legally since she didn't appear to be a clear and present danger to herself or anyone else (as determined under real mental health guidelines and the law, and not us utterly unqualified bystanders gossiping on a message board), there would have been very little that could have been done to compel her to do anything. She would have had to pretty much directly threaten explicit harm to herself or someone else in order for the authorities to compel her to do anything. In reality all she really did was say some super crazy things. If I had been Bethenny though, I think I would have hidden all of the sharps from the kitchen just to be sure. Sharon Tate was a real person after all, but that's a different show.

As for Bravo airing that episode, apparently they chose not to air the worst of it, and she might be thankful they chose to show some discretion. That kind of thing is exactly why people tune in week after week - the drama. That was the first really REAL reality TV I've seen in a long long time. This epi just happened to have the season making, undiluted, REAL drama everyone is usually looking for. You have to admit it was one hell of a lot more interesting than Nini Leakes (ATL HWs) driving around trying to create her own "are you my Daddy" storyline, or yet another fashion line, or book, (YAWN...), etc. After all, people don't watch NASCAR to be amazed at how well someone can do 300 left turns in a row. No, at the heart of the sport people are tuning in to catch that rare and spectacular wipe out. Do they really want anyone hurt? Of course not. They want that driver back so he (or she) can wreck again. No one died here either, but she sure trimmed back her own ego several notches, and no one did it but her.

I can understand why this might have hit close to home for you, but we have to remember no one held a gun to any one of these women's heads and made them do this show. This has been a feature of the discussion ever since the HWOC started years ago. If any of these people don't want their personal laundry aired for the entire world to see and comment on, all they have to do is not chase the notoriety and spending change that comes with it. They don't get to choose which part will be seen and which part will not. They are either all in or not at all.

My guess is your relative with a similar problem to Kelly has something approaching humility and wouldn't be caught dead so full of her own ego that she's out re-routing noon hour traffic in downtown manhatten so she can try to look cool running down the middle of the street in her own ad hoc Nike commercial, all of it at the expense, frustration and inconvenience of the other millions of people around her just trying to live their lives. Really, how much more selfish could a person be?

No, I say she put herself up there for everyone to admire her "fabulous life," and ended up showing her not so fabulous butt instead. That is only her fault, not Bavo's, or yours, or mine.

What???

[watts]

You are so right. Bethenny said the exact same thing about her. I think it started at one of the fashion shows...but B said 'we've met 5 or 6 times and she never says hi...like she never met me before'.

Even Lulu had a beef with Kelly about this. Even when Kelly found out that Sonja had dated Brazilian Bob (forgot his name) she denied having dated him.

If I were Bethanny, i would be very careful around Kelly.....did you all notice how she was sooo quick to say that if anyone went near her girls, she would "claw their eyes out" and the way she refers to Bethanny as having knives for a tongue?

I remember Kelly saying the same thing when the girls got irritated with her talking on the cell on the way to dinner. Alex said on her Bravo blog that she called Simon and checked on her kids but that she didn't need to call them outside her room to prove she was a good mother (prolly taking a quiet jab at that remark).

One other thing that annoys me is when Kelly keeps harping on the "I'm all alone ... " Sonja came there to befriend you and make sure she wasn't ganged up on/bullied/whatever. But that doesn't fit into your delusion, so nevermind.

One big (giant) I KNOW!!! Sonja was there to defend the crazy person.

If anyone reads the People article on the link provided by MamaC, be sure to scroll down and read the remarks by GWEN1960. Either Ms. Paltrow has lept to Kelly's defense or the Pino is flowing late at Kelly's house.

It's not so far-fetched that she's BFF's with Gwyneth. "Gwen" is as cuckoo as she is.

[Pandora2]

Kelly Bensimon: ‘I’m Not Proud’ of the Way I Acted - PEOPLE TV Watch

The Real Housewives of New York City
Kelly Bensimon: ‘I’m Not Proud’ of the Way I Acted
May 23, 2010


Kelly Bensimon wants to be clear about one thing. She’s not crazy — and that wasn’t a nervous breakdown you saw on The Real Housewives of New York City Thursday, as she blew up at her costars during a trip to the Virgin Islands.

“It was a nervous breakthrough,” Bensimon tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview appearing in next week’s issue.

“I learned don’t do it. Don’t be around people who don’t like you. I will never engage them like that ever again. I learned my lesson, as should everyone.”

The lesson involved comes as a result of what Bensimon, 42, calls the group’s “systematic bullying” of her throughout the vacation, during which she and costars Ramona Singer, Alex McCord, Sonja Morgan and her former rival Bethenny Frankel were sequestered on a yacht.

“It was four people against one. I go on this trip, I’m trying to be open. I have no expectations. I’m trying to be nice to these women who clearly don’t like me,” Bensimon says. “But the minute I got on the trip, they went after me. It was constant.”

Being away from her children Sea, 12, and Teddy, 9, was an added stressor. The isolated maritime setting didn’t help much either. “It’s an awkward position. Normally you’d be like, ‘I’m not dealing with this… I’m leaving,’” she says. “But this is not a situation where you can leave. You have to stay and you have to police them otherwise then you’re not a part of what’s going on and then they go off.”

But fans shouldn’t judge Bensimon based on this one episode. “This is me being a Housewife on a television show,” she says. “This is not me in my real life.”

---------------

Note to Kelly: We must not have been watching the same show. I saw YOU arguing with the ladies. I saw YOU trying to start stuff up with Bethenny. I never saw any of the other ladies gang up on you. Seriously, Kelly, the time has come for someone to see that you do get the help you so need. And while I am at it, don't think for a NY second that Jill is your new BFF.

Trying to be nice? Seriously? God help us all if you ever decide to tell us how you really feel.

And how many people can say they threw up out of fear that someone they were about to go on vacation with was going to KILL them, and then say they went in with no expectations? How is that even possible? She's either lying or she really is delusional. I'm guessing the latter.

[Hobbes07]

It took her 42 years to learn to not engage in people she doesn't like?

I still don't get why she went on that trip, I doubt Bravo forced her too, I mean, Luann and Jill didn't go. I know Luann said she didn't go because of her daughter's birthday but I'm pretty sure if Jill or Sonja had planned this trip she would have been all over it.

It's funny how she blames everyone but, regardless of what we weren't shown of the other ladies, we saw how she acted. So explain that without blaming others??

Also, Sonja was not being mean to her, she was her only allies there.


I think it's funny how last weeks blog she said she was embarrassed of the way she acted but this week she's on the defense and blaming others for her crazy behavior.

[eveann38]

And I bet Bravo is saving the really bad part for the reunion.

[Omar_X]

What???

Sharon Tate was a beautiful, up and coming model/starlet back in the '60s (wife of pre-child molester Roman Polanski) whose baby died inside her when she was carved up with kitchen knives at a dinner party by the psychotic Manson Family. Bethenny is a tiny little thing to begin with, but pregnant, possibly caught off guard in a quiet corner of the boat, and at the hands of a hulking brute like Kelly, who has hands like OJ, she wouldn't stand a chance.

Though Kelly did not directly threaten anyone as far as we know, if I were Bethenny the constant verbal imagery of knives stabbing people coming for Kelly's mouth, as well as the sense of vulnerability at having no escape from Kelly in a moment of physical violence in the middle of the night, I could imagine scenarios crossing Bethenny's mind which might lead her to entertain thoughts of hiding all the sharp objects in the galley.

Are such actions usually seen as over the top? Sure. On the the other hand, are the same actions considered prophetically insightful the moment they prove in hindsight to have been a wise, life saving choice? Yep, that too.

I'm just saying that with with Kelly constantly throwing out imagery of knives stabbing people could we really blame Bethenny for having such concerns at the time? I don't think so. It also speaks well of her that at least on camera she never expressed any such of concern. She really was cutting Kelly some slack on that I think.

[dustypants]

^^

[Hobbes07]

Has anyone seen Kelly in her modeling days? Since I've never heard of her I assume she was not popular as models like Cindy Crowford, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, etc. I mean, I think she's attractive (well minus her personality she might be) but she doesn't look like model material. Granted, it could be the years of sun worshiping that she clearly continues to do but anyone with a good photographer and photo-shop could look like a model in print.

Also, she has a strange shaped body. Very broad shoulders and no waist....more like an athlete (I think this has been mentioned before) like Gabriel Reece.