The Real Housewives of New York City
Encyclopedia
The Real Housewives of New York City is an American
reality television
program on the Bravo cable TV network, a spin-off of the Bravo series The Real Housewives of Orange County
. New York is the second city featured in The Real Housewives of... franchise. While in production for Season 1, the show was tentatively titled Manhattan Moms.
Season 1 premiered on March 4, 2008 and starred Bethenny Frankel
, LuAnn de Lesseps
, Alex McCord, Ramona Singer and Jill Zarin. Despite the series title, the women featured were not all housewives. Frankel was unmarried and had her own business; McCord, Singer, and Zarin all had jobs outside the home; and Singer owned her own business. Kelly Killoren Bensimon
was added to the cast for Season 2, which premiered on February 17, 2009.
Bethenny Frankel's spinoff, Bethenny Getting Married?
, premiered on June 10, 2010 and features appearances by former housemates Ramona Singer and Alex McCord. On August 31, 2010, Frankel made an official announcement that she would not be returning to the Real Housewives of New York City series for its fourth season.
In September 2010, Season 4 began filming with Cindy Barshop as the series' newest "housewife". Filming finished, however, only two weeks before February 15, 2011 - the season's slated premiere date. Not wanting to miss anything, Bravo pushed the Season 4 premiere back until April 7, 2011 and instead premiered The Real Housewives of Miami
on February 15, 2011.
Season 5 is currently filming with original housewives Ramona Singer and Luann De Lesseps, Sonja Morgan, who joined the cast for season 3, and three new cast members: Carole Radziwill, Heather Thomson, and Aviva Drescher, who will replace original cast 'housewives' Jill Zarin, Alex McCord, and season 2 recruit Kelly Bensimon.
A tweet from original cast member, LuAnn, corfirmed that Bravo has already started filming the ladies for season 5, and Luann also tweeted that season 5 would be on air in Spring 2012.
"I love making my own money... I find that an aphrodisiac." (Season 1 - Season 3)
"If people can't handle the truth, it's really not my problem." (Season 4 - present)
Ramona Singer (born November 18, 1956 in Rhinebeck, NY, about 100 miles north of NYC) lives in Manhattan
with her husband Mario and their teenage daughter, Avery. After graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology
, Singer began her career as a buyer for Macy's
and then moved into the wholesale clothing business with French Connection
and Calvin Klein
. She is the owner of RMS Fashions, a company that purchases excess goods from clothing manufacturers and resells them to discount stores. (In the apparel industry, Ramona is known as a jobber - a middleman to whom manufacturers sell their surplus fabric.)
She developed her own line of jewelry, which is sold through the Home Shopping Network
(HSN), and she markets the line herself. She also developed and launched a skin care line, TruRenewal, in 2009.
"I never feel guilty about being privileged." (Season 1 - Season 3)
"I thought I had it good before, but I'm just getting started." (Season 4 - present)
LuAnn de Lesseps, née Nadeau (born May 17, 1965 in Berlin, Connecticut
), was born to a concrete manufacturer (the firm is still owned by two of her brothers), but she quickly left her working class life behind. She modeled with Wilhelmina Models
and is an LPN. She is of Algonquin
and French
descent. and was the fourth wife of Count Alexandre de Lesseps, a descendant of Ferdinand de Lesseps
of the Suez Canal
family. They have two children. De Lesseps and her husband were divorced in 2010. In a former life she was a cocktail waitress.
Alexandre and LuAnn de Lesseps do not belong to the regular French aristocracy. Alexandre's forbears are not even mentioned in the 1911 "Annuaire de la Noblesse de France" . Husband Alexandre and LuAnn belong to what one calls "la noblesse d'apparence" ou "la fausse noblesse" . Today the port of a regular French aristocratic title is regulated by the French Ministère de la Justice, which holds a "Répertoire" of all recognized French noble families . LuAnn and Alexandre De Lesseps are not mentioned in this list and therefore cannot bare a noble title.
De Lesseps is listed as the author of a book published in 2009 titled Class With The Countess. In April 2010, de Lesseps released a music single titled "Money Can't Buy You Class". She released her second single, "Chic, C'est La Vie" in June 2011.
"I have a taste for luxury and luxury has a taste for me." (Season 3 - present)
Sonja Morgan (born November 25, 1963 in Albany, NY, as Sonja Tremont) is the ex-wife of John Morgan. John, 33 years her senior, is one of five children of Henry S. Morgan
(a great-grandson of J. Pierpont Morgan) and Catherine Adams (a great-great-granddaughter of John Adams
, the second President of the United States).
According to the New York Post
, Morgan agreed to finance a motion picture in 2006 but backed out at the last minute because she had just been served with divorce papers. As a result, a federal jury in California awarded the production company $7.06 million in damages in September 2009.
According to the New York Daily News
, Morgan is currently working on a screenplay that she describes as "a Candace Bushnell
society novel."
Carol Radziwill is a distant relative of Jacqueline Onassis through her late husband, Anthony Radziwill
. Anthony's mother, Lee Radziwill
is Jackie's little sister. Anthony passed away of cancer in 1999 just fours weeks after John F. Kennedy, Jr.
and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy
died in a plane crash. Carole was very close friends with Carolyn. Carole, a former ABC
producer and now a bestselling author, appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show
in 2005 to discuss her memoir What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love. She has no kids and is reportedly single.
Heather is described as a successful designer and stylist. She owns the shapewear business, Yummie Tummie, which is sold in over 2,000 stores and has been featured as one of Oprah Winfrey
’s “Favorite Things.” She has worked with the likes of Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez
to help create and launch their respective labels. Heather is a married mom of two.
Aviva is married to Reid Drescher, founder of Spencer Clarke Securities & Investment Banking. The couple have three children together. Sources says producers wanted a “Wall Street
wife,” and Aviva just happens to fit the bill perfectly.
"New York City is my playground." (Season 1 - Season 3)
Bethenny Frankel
(born November 4, 1970; Port Washington, Long Island, NY, where she grew up), daughter of Bernadette Parisella and the late thoroughbred
race horse trainer
and horse racing
hall-of-famer
Robert Frankel, is a natural foods chef. She graduated from Pine Crest School
(a high school in Boca Raton, Florida) and attended New York University
(but did not graduate) and The Natural Gourmet Institute in New York. She created BethennyBakes, a company that offered a line of wheat, egg and dairy-free baked goods that was carried in hundreds of retail outlets. BethennyBakes ceased production in 2010 when Frankel launched the Skinnygirl brand, the flagship product of which is the Skinnygirl Margarita, a premixed drink lower in calories than a traditional margarita. On March 28, 2010, Frankel married Jason Hoppy at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City. She and Hoppy now star in Bravo TV's spinoff series, Bethenny Ever After..., which premiered on June 10, 2010. On May 8, 2010, Bethenny gave birth to a baby girl, Bryn, who weighed approximately 4 lbs, 13 ounces at birth.
She was a regular contributor to NBC's coverage
of the 2009 Kentucky Derby
and 2009 Preakness Stakes
, and Bravo's coverage of the 2009 Kentucky Oaks
. Before she appeared in The Real Housewives of New York City, Frankel starred in the 1994 movie Hollywood Hills 90028 and acted in the 1995 movie Wish Me Luck. In 2005, Frankel was a contestant and the first runner-up on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart
.
In 2009, Frankel posed nude for animal rights
group PETA
's anti-fur campaign; her photo was featured on a billboard in Times Square
.
Frankel is the author of Naturally Thin: Unleash Your Skinnygirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting (2009). She has since authored The Skinnygirl Dish, The Skinnygirl Rules, and released an exercise DVD, Body by Bethenny. Frankel’s fourth book, A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life, was published on Touchstone March 22, 2011, and entered the New York Times Best Seller List in the Hardcover Advice & Misc. List category on April 10, 2011.
"I run with a fabulous circle of people." (Season 1 - Season 3)
"Good or bad, I know who I am, and I own it." (Season 4)
Jill Zarin (born 30 November 1963; Woodmere, New York
) is married to Bobby Zarin, who owns Zarin Fabric Warehouse and Home Furnishings, a home furnishing and fabric store on Manhattan's Lower East Side
started by his father. Zarin, who attended Simmons College
, does marketing for her husband's store and holds a real estate license.
"To a certain group of people in New York, status is everything." (Season 1 - Season 3)
"I've always had opinions, but now people know it." (Season 4)
Alex McCord, (born October 1, 1973; Washington, D.C.) has lived in New York City since 1996. She was raised in Kansas
, Texas
, and the U.S. Virgin Islands and attended Northwestern University
but never graduated. McCord was a graphic designer for over nine years and was a voice actress, Birdy of Birdy the Mighty
being her most prominent role.
McCord is married to Simon Van Kempen, who worked in the hotel industry in New York New York City
throughout the first three seasons, but has since left to start his own social media
business within the hotel sector. As of 2010, she and van Kempen reside in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
. They have two boys together, Francois and Johan, who were named for Simon's late father, Francois Johan Walter van Kempen.
In March 2009, she was laid off from her job in visual merchandising for Limited Brands/Victoria’s Secret.
"I've created a great life and I love living it." (Season 2 - Season 3)
"I'm living the American Dream one mistake at a time." (Season 4)
Kelly Killoren Bensimon (born May 1, 1968; Rockford, IL) is a former model, equestrian, jewelry designer, and magazine editor. She is the author of three books published by Assouline: In the Spirit of the Hamptons, American Style, and The Bikini Book (2005). She also has a jewelry line, which she has been selling for the last six years.
"I have everything I ever wanted and it's all on my own terms." (Season 4)
Cindy Barshop is the owner of , a chain of hair-removal spas. She previously worked in telecommunications for IBM. She opened her first spa in New York City in 1998. A single mother, Barshop has 15-month-old twin girls, Jessie and Zoe, whom she chose to have on her own. She is from Long Island, NY.
stores released the first season on DVD.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
program on the Bravo cable TV network, a spin-off of the Bravo series The Real Housewives of Orange County
The Real Housewives of Orange County
The Real Housewives of Orange County is a reality television program on the Bravo network. It is the first and seminal installation in the The Real Housewives of... series...
. New York is the second city featured in The Real Housewives of... franchise. While in production for Season 1, the show was tentatively titled Manhattan Moms.
Season 1 premiered on March 4, 2008 and starred Bethenny Frankel
Bethenny Frankel
Bethenny Frankel is an American reality show personality, author, entrepreneur and natural foods chef. She was a contestant in the 2005 series The Apprentice: Martha Stewart and one of the original five housewives featured on the Bravo reality series The Real Housewives of New York City...
, LuAnn de Lesseps
LuAnn de Lesseps
LuAnn de Lesseps, known as Countess LuAnn or The Countess is an American television personality, recording artist, and former fashion model best known for her appearances on the Bravo show The Real Housewives of New York City...
, Alex McCord, Ramona Singer and Jill Zarin. Despite the series title, the women featured were not all housewives. Frankel was unmarried and had her own business; McCord, Singer, and Zarin all had jobs outside the home; and Singer owned her own business. Kelly Killoren Bensimon
Kelly Killoren Bensimon
Kelly Killoren Bensimon is an author, jewelry designer, former model, and former editor of Elle Accessories. She appeared on Bravo The Real Housewives of New York City seasons 2-4.-Early life:...
was added to the cast for Season 2, which premiered on February 17, 2009.
Bethenny Frankel's spinoff, Bethenny Getting Married?
Bethenny Getting Married?
Bethenny Ever After..., titled Bethenny Getting Married? in the first season, is an American reality television program on the Bravo cable TV network. It is a spin-off of the Bravo series The Real Housewives of New York City from the The Real Housewives of... franchise...
, premiered on June 10, 2010 and features appearances by former housemates Ramona Singer and Alex McCord. On August 31, 2010, Frankel made an official announcement that she would not be returning to the Real Housewives of New York City series for its fourth season.
In September 2010, Season 4 began filming with Cindy Barshop as the series' newest "housewife". Filming finished, however, only two weeks before February 15, 2011 - the season's slated premiere date. Not wanting to miss anything, Bravo pushed the Season 4 premiere back until April 7, 2011 and instead premiered The Real Housewives of Miami
The Real Housewives of Miami
The Real Housewives of Miami is a reality series for the Bravo cable network. The seventh and latest installment in the network's The Real Housewives of... franchise officially premiered on February 22, 2011...
on February 15, 2011.
Season 5 is currently filming with original housewives Ramona Singer and Luann De Lesseps, Sonja Morgan, who joined the cast for season 3, and three new cast members: Carole Radziwill, Heather Thomson, and Aviva Drescher, who will replace original cast 'housewives' Jill Zarin, Alex McCord, and season 2 recruit Kelly Bensimon.
A tweet from original cast member, LuAnn, corfirmed that Bravo has already started filming the ladies for season 5, and Luann also tweeted that season 5 would be on air in Spring 2012.
Ramona Singer
(Season 1 - present)"I love making my own money... I find that an aphrodisiac." (Season 1 - Season 3)
"If people can't handle the truth, it's really not my problem." (Season 4 - present)
Ramona Singer (born November 18, 1956 in Rhinebeck, NY, about 100 miles north of NYC) lives in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
with her husband Mario and their teenage daughter, Avery. After graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology
Fashion Institute of Technology
The Fashion Institute of Technology, generally known as FIT, is a State University of New York college of art, business, design, and technology connected to the fashion industry, with an urban campus located on West 27th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of...
, Singer began her career as a buyer for Macy's
Macy's
Macy's is a U.S. chain of mid-to-high range department stores. In addition to its flagship Herald Square location in New York City, the company operates over 800 stores in the United States...
and then moved into the wholesale clothing business with French Connection
French Connection
The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Turkey to France and then to the United States. The operation reached its peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it provided the vast majority of the illicit heroin used in the United States...
and Calvin Klein
Calvin Klein
Calvin Richard Klein is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968. In addition to clothing, Klein has also given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewelry....
. She is the owner of RMS Fashions, a company that purchases excess goods from clothing manufacturers and resells them to discount stores. (In the apparel industry, Ramona is known as a jobber - a middleman to whom manufacturers sell their surplus fabric.)
She developed her own line of jewelry, which is sold through the Home Shopping Network
Home Shopping Network
Home Shopping Network or HSN began in 1977 as a 24-hour/7 day a week home shopping television network televised via cable, satellite, and some terrestrial channels in the Philippines. HSN can also be shopped online at hsn.com...
(HSN), and she markets the line herself. She also developed and launched a skin care line, TruRenewal, in 2009.
LuAnn de Lesseps
(Season 1 - present)"I never feel guilty about being privileged." (Season 1 - Season 3)
"I thought I had it good before, but I'm just getting started." (Season 4 - present)
LuAnn de Lesseps, née Nadeau (born May 17, 1965 in Berlin, Connecticut
Berlin, Connecticut
Berlin is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 19,866 at the 2010 census. It was incorporated in 1785. The geographic center of Connecticut is located in the town. Berlin is residential and industrial, and served by the Amtrak station of the same name...
), was born to a concrete manufacturer (the firm is still owned by two of her brothers), but she quickly left her working class life behind. She modeled with Wilhelmina Models
Wilhelmina Models
Wilhelmina Models is a modeling agency founded in 1967 by the model Wilhelmina Cooper and her husband Bruce Cooper in Manhattan Starting in 2010, Wilhelmina Models started a sub-brand called "Digital Empire Modeling" for new digital-era modeling talents....
and is an LPN. She is of Algonquin
Algonquian peoples
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
and French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
descent. and was the fourth wife of Count Alexandre de Lesseps, a descendant of Ferdinand de Lesseps
Ferdinand de Lesseps
Ferdinand Marie, Vicomte de Lesseps, GCSI was the French developer of the Suez Canal, which joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas in 1869, and substantially reduced sailing distances and times between the West and the East.He attempted to repeat this success with an effort to build a sea-level...
of the Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
family. They have two children. De Lesseps and her husband were divorced in 2010. In a former life she was a cocktail waitress.
Alexandre and LuAnn de Lesseps do not belong to the regular French aristocracy. Alexandre's forbears are not even mentioned in the 1911 "Annuaire de la Noblesse de France" . Husband Alexandre and LuAnn belong to what one calls "la noblesse d'apparence" ou "la fausse noblesse" . Today the port of a regular French aristocratic title is regulated by the French Ministère de la Justice, which holds a "Répertoire" of all recognized French noble families . LuAnn and Alexandre De Lesseps are not mentioned in this list and therefore cannot bare a noble title.
De Lesseps is listed as the author of a book published in 2009 titled Class With The Countess. In April 2010, de Lesseps released a music single titled "Money Can't Buy You Class". She released her second single, "Chic, C'est La Vie" in June 2011.
Sonja Morgan
(Season 3 - present)"I have a taste for luxury and luxury has a taste for me." (Season 3 - present)
Sonja Morgan (born November 25, 1963 in Albany, NY, as Sonja Tremont) is the ex-wife of John Morgan. John, 33 years her senior, is one of five children of Henry S. Morgan
Henry S. Morgan
-Biography:He was born on October 24, 1900 in London, England to John Pierpont Morgan, Jr. and Jane Norton Grew. His father was the son of J. P. Morgan; and his mother was the daughter of Boston banker and mill owner Henry Sturgis Grew. Morgan had two sons....
(a great-grandson of J. Pierpont Morgan) and Catherine Adams (a great-great-granddaughter of John Adams
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
, the second President of the United States).
According to the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, Morgan agreed to finance a motion picture in 2006 but backed out at the last minute because she had just been served with divorce papers. As a result, a federal jury in California awarded the production company $7.06 million in damages in September 2009.
According to the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
, Morgan is currently working on a screenplay that she describes as "a Candace Bushnell
Candace Bushnell
Candace Bushnell is an American author and columnist based in New York City. She is best known for writing a column that was anthologized in a book, Sex and the City, which in turn became the basis for a popular television series and its subsequent film adaptations.-Personal life:Bushnell was born...
society novel."
Carole Radziwill
(not yet confirmed from an official statement from Bravo - present)Carol Radziwill is a distant relative of Jacqueline Onassis through her late husband, Anthony Radziwill
Anthony Radziwill
Anthony Stanislas Albert Radziwill was an American television executive and filmmaker.-Early life and education:...
. Anthony's mother, Lee Radziwill
Lee Radziwill
Caroline Lee Bouvier Canfield Radziwill Ross best known as Lee Radziwill, is an American socialite, public relations executive, and former actress and interior decorator. She is the younger sister of the late First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis...
is Jackie's little sister. Anthony passed away of cancer in 1999 just fours weeks after John F. Kennedy, Jr.
John F. Kennedy, Jr.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. , often referred to as John F. Kennedy, Jr., JFK Jr., John Jr. or John-John, was an American socialite, magazine publisher, lawyer, and pilot. The elder son of U.S. President John F...
and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy
Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy
Carolyn Jeanne Bessette-Kennedy was the wife of John F. Kennedy, Jr., the son of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.-Early life:...
died in a plane crash. Carole was very close friends with Carolyn. Carole, a former ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
producer and now a bestselling author, appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show is an American syndicated talk show hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey. It ran nationally for 25 seasons beginning in 1986, before concluding in 2011. It is the highest-rated talk show in American television history....
in 2005 to discuss her memoir What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love. She has no kids and is reportedly single.
Heather Thomson
(not yet confirmed from an official statement from Bravo - present)Heather is described as a successful designer and stylist. She owns the shapewear business, Yummie Tummie, which is sold in over 2,000 stores and has been featured as one of Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
’s “Favorite Things.” She has worked with the likes of Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
to help create and launch their respective labels. Heather is a married mom of two.
Aviva Drescher
(not yet confirmed from an official statement from Bravo - present)Aviva is married to Reid Drescher, founder of Spencer Clarke Securities & Investment Banking. The couple have three children together. Sources says producers wanted a “Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
wife,” and Aviva just happens to fit the bill perfectly.
Bethenny Frankel
(Season 1 - Season 3)"New York City is my playground." (Season 1 - Season 3)
Bethenny Frankel
Bethenny Frankel
Bethenny Frankel is an American reality show personality, author, entrepreneur and natural foods chef. She was a contestant in the 2005 series The Apprentice: Martha Stewart and one of the original five housewives featured on the Bravo reality series The Real Housewives of New York City...
(born November 4, 1970; Port Washington, Long Island, NY, where she grew up), daughter of Bernadette Parisella and the late thoroughbred
Thoroughbred
The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word thoroughbred is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed...
race horse trainer
Horse trainer
In horse racing, a trainer prepares a horse for races, with responsibility for exercising it, getting it race-ready and determining which races it should enter...
and horse racing
Horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...
hall-of-famer
National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame
The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame was founded in 1950 in Saratoga Springs, New York, to honor the achievements of American thoroughbred race horses, jockeys, and trainers...
Robert Frankel, is a natural foods chef. She graduated from Pine Crest School
Pine Crest School
Pine Crest School is a private college preparatory school with campuses in Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was founded in Fort Lauderdale in 1934 by Mae McMillan who began as a tutor to children of families spending the winter in South Florida, USA. In 1995, Dr. Lourdes Cowgill became...
(a high school in Boca Raton, Florida) and attended New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
(but did not graduate) and The Natural Gourmet Institute in New York. She created BethennyBakes, a company that offered a line of wheat, egg and dairy-free baked goods that was carried in hundreds of retail outlets. BethennyBakes ceased production in 2010 when Frankel launched the Skinnygirl brand, the flagship product of which is the Skinnygirl Margarita, a premixed drink lower in calories than a traditional margarita. On March 28, 2010, Frankel married Jason Hoppy at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City. She and Hoppy now star in Bravo TV's spinoff series, Bethenny Ever After..., which premiered on June 10, 2010. On May 8, 2010, Bethenny gave birth to a baby girl, Bryn, who weighed approximately 4 lbs, 13 ounces at birth.
She was a regular contributor to NBC's coverage
Thoroughbred Racing on NBC
Thoroughbred Racing on NBC is the de facto title for a series of horse races produced and broadcast by NBC Sports. Among its current personalites are hosts Tom Hammond and Bob Costas, along with analyst Gary L...
of the 2009 Kentucky Derby
2009 Kentucky Derby
The 2009 Kentucky Derby was the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby. The value of the race was $2,177,000 in stakes. The race was sponsored by Yum! Brands and hence officially was called Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands. The race took place on May 2, 2009, and was televised in the United...
and 2009 Preakness Stakes
2009 Preakness Stakes
The 2009 Preakness Stakes was the 134th running of the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of horse racing's Triple Crown. The value of the race was $1,100,000 in stakes. The race was sponsored by BlackBerry and hence officially was called Blackberry Preakness Stakes. The race took place on May 16,...
, and Bravo's coverage of the 2009 Kentucky Oaks
Kentucky Oaks
The Kentucky Oaks is a Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred fillies staged annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. The race currently covers 1⅛ miles at Churchill Downs; the horses carry 121 pounds . The Kentucky Oaks is held on the Friday before the Kentucky Derby each year...
. Before she appeared in The Real Housewives of New York City, Frankel starred in the 1994 movie Hollywood Hills 90028 and acted in the 1995 movie Wish Me Luck. In 2005, Frankel was a contestant and the first runner-up on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart
The Apprentice: Martha Stewart
The Apprentice: Martha Stewart is a spin-off from the American reality television series The Apprentice that ran in the fall of 2005. Broadcast on NBC, the show featured business tycoon Martha Stewart. Tasks were centered around Stewart's areas of expertise: media, culinary arts, entertaining,...
.
In 2009, Frankel posed nude for animal rights
Animal rights
Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...
group PETA
Peta
Peta can refer to:* peta-, an SI prefix denoting a factor of 1015* Peta, Greece, a town in Greece* Peta, the Pāli word for a Preta, or hungry ghost in Buddhism* Peta Wilson, an Australian actress and model* Peta Todd, English glamour model...
's anti-fur campaign; her photo was featured on a billboard in Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
.
Frankel is the author of Naturally Thin: Unleash Your Skinnygirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting (2009). She has since authored The Skinnygirl Dish, The Skinnygirl Rules, and released an exercise DVD, Body by Bethenny. Frankel’s fourth book, A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life, was published on Touchstone March 22, 2011, and entered the New York Times Best Seller List in the Hardcover Advice & Misc. List category on April 10, 2011.
Jill Zarin
(Season 1 - Season 4)"I run with a fabulous circle of people." (Season 1 - Season 3)
"Good or bad, I know who I am, and I own it." (Season 4)
Jill Zarin (born 30 November 1963; Woodmere, New York
Woodmere, New York
Woodmere is a hamlet in Nassau County, New York, United States. The population was 17,121 at the 2010 census.Woodmere is one of the Long Island communities known as the Five Towns, which is usually said to comprise the villages of Lawrence and Cedarhurst, the hamlets of Woodmere and Inwood, and...
) is married to Bobby Zarin, who owns Zarin Fabric Warehouse and Home Furnishings, a home furnishing and fabric store on Manhattan's Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
started by his father. Zarin, who attended Simmons College
Simmons College (Massachusetts)
Simmons College, established in 1899, is a private women's undergraduate college and private co-educational graduate school in Boston, Massachusetts.-History:Simmons was founded in 1899 with a bequest by John Simmons a wealthy clothing manufacturer in Boston...
, does marketing for her husband's store and holds a real estate license.
Alex McCord
(Season 1 - 4)"To a certain group of people in New York, status is everything." (Season 1 - Season 3)
"I've always had opinions, but now people know it." (Season 4)
Alex McCord, (born October 1, 1973; Washington, D.C.) has lived in New York City since 1996. She was raised in Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, and the U.S. Virgin Islands and attended Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
but never graduated. McCord was a graphic designer for over nine years and was a voice actress, Birdy of Birdy the Mighty
Birdy the Mighty
is a manga by Masami Yuki, who is best known for producing the long-running series Patlabor. His initial work on the series was quickly abandoned, but it was made into an anime, which was produced and, on the last episode, scripted by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, who is known for anime titles such as Vampire...
being her most prominent role.
McCord is married to Simon Van Kempen, who worked in the hotel industry in New York New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
throughout the first three seasons, but has since left to start his own social media
Social media
The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...
business within the hotel sector. As of 2010, she and van Kempen reside in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
Cobble Hill is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, USA. Bordered by Atlantic Avenue on the north, Hicks Street to the west, Smith Street on the east and Degraw Street to the south, Cobble Hill sits adjacent to Boerum Hill and Brooklyn Heights with Carroll Gardens to the south...
. They have two boys together, Francois and Johan, who were named for Simon's late father, Francois Johan Walter van Kempen.
In March 2009, she was laid off from her job in visual merchandising for Limited Brands/Victoria’s Secret.
Kelly Killoren Bensimon
(Season 2 - 4)"I've created a great life and I love living it." (Season 2 - Season 3)
"I'm living the American Dream one mistake at a time." (Season 4)
Kelly Killoren Bensimon (born May 1, 1968; Rockford, IL) is a former model, equestrian, jewelry designer, and magazine editor. She is the author of three books published by Assouline: In the Spirit of the Hamptons, American Style, and The Bikini Book (2005). She also has a jewelry line, which she has been selling for the last six years.
Cindy Barshop
(Season 4)"I have everything I ever wanted and it's all on my own terms." (Season 4)
Cindy Barshop is the owner of , a chain of hair-removal spas. She previously worked in telecommunications for IBM. She opened her first spa in New York City in 1998. A single mother, Barshop has 15-month-old twin girls, Jessie and Zoe, whom she chose to have on her own. She is from Long Island, NY.
Housewife history
| Housewives | Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3 | Season 4 | Season 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ramona Singer | |||||
| LuAnn de Lesseps | |||||
| Alex McCord | |||||
| Jill Zarin | |||||
| Bethenny Frankel | |||||
| Kelly Bensimon | |||||
| Sonja Morgan | |||||
| Cindy Barshop | |||||
| Carole Radziwill | TBC | ||||
| Heather Thomson | TBC | ||||
| Aviva Drescher | TBC |
DVD releases
In April 2010, TargetTarget Corporation
Target Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...
stores released the first season on DVD.
| Season | Episodes | Release date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9 | April 13, 2010 | |
| 2 | 15 | Fall 2010 | |
| 3 | 18 | April 13, 2011 | |
| 4 | TBA | TBA | |