We've heard rumors that the "Real Housewives" of New York have been blacklisted at various high-profile social events around town. That certainly makes sense: Would you want Jill Zarin or Alex McCord lapping up attention on your red carpet? Sadly, the same seems to apply to events hosted by the ladies from the Bravo show.
• Is Lindsay Lohan heading back to rehab? That's what her mother, relatives, and friends are supposedly encouraging her to do, since she's been on a "self-destructive binge of partying, tears and breakdowns" ever since Sam Ronson broke up with her. To make matters worse, she keeps bumping into Sam everywhere she goes. Clearly, the girls need to decide once and for all which one's getting Chateau Marmont so this sort of thing stops happening. [OK!, L&S, P6]
• The Sun reports Madonna and Jesus Luz have reunited. As the story goes, Jesus came back to NYC to "perk up" Madge after all that trouble in Malawi and now they're like, going to Kabbalah classes and, like, eating dinner together and stuff. [Sun]
• Drew Barrymore and Justin Long are supposedly dating again, even though they claim they're "just friends" in public. [NYDN, P6]
• "Real Housewife" Jill Zarin recently underwent breast reduction surgery. If you're lucky, you'll see the whole procedure go down on a future episode. [P6]
When the ladies from The Real Housewives of New York City were criticized for being hopelessly out of the touch with the current economic climate, they argued that the show had been filmed before the financial crisis, so it wasn't really their fault. Well, it appears that Jill Zarin has still failed to pick up a copy of the newspaper. OK! asked the fabric mogul's wife where to go to find a rich husband and instead of providing an answer that actually makes sense (move to China?), she reverted to the sort of advice that might have been useful in 2005. "If you want to find a rich husband, go sit in a private airplane terminal," Jill Zarin says. "Anyone coming off a private airplane is probably doing all right."
• Bruce Wasserstein has been keeping busy. In between splitting up with his third wife and marrying his fourth, he found the time to have a baby with a recent Columbia Business School grad, with whom he's now sharing custody of a 10-month-old girl. [P6]
• The LAPD have launched an investigation into who leaked a confidential photo of a battered and bruised Rihanna to TMZ. [TMZ, E!]
• Whitney Port said this week that Olivia Palermo can be "very difficult to worth with," and that she occasionally wants to "slap her." Join the club. [AH]
• Madonna is reportedly planning to use the Vanity Fair Oscar party on Sunday to introduce Jesus Luz to the world as her new boyfriend. [OK!]
• Portia De Rossi is reportedly preparing to undergo IVF so she and Ellen DeGeneres can have a baby. [SFGate]
So much for the Real Housewives of New York City. The show hasn't debuted yet—it starts tonight on Bravo—but it's already been ravaged by critics, even ones who willingly admit to being fans of the 17 other iterations of the show. (After all, it's not too often that a critic tells the entire cast of a reality show to "drop dead.") The main beef? Not that the show focuses on horrible women who happily spend a weekend afternoon "gearing up for an event for a magazine called Social Life." That's nothing new, of course. It's that the show is hopelessly out of touch with the current economic climate. It was all well and good for Simon Van Kempen to pretend he had a dollar to his name when the economy was cruising along. Now that the world is falling apart and Simon is still "spending" $8,000 on resort-wear? "The whole enterprise, like so much else on Bravo, the 'affluencer' network, feels like a moldy leftover from the pre-Obama age," writes Ginia Bellafante in the Times.
So tonight marks the premiere of The Real Housewives of New York City's second season. No, that strange ache you felt near your heart wasn't indigestion. Never watched before? Here, let me introduce you.
After inexplicably deciding that the attention she'll get from becoming a castmember of the Real Housewives of New York is worth it, Kelly Killoren Bensimon—ex-wife of ancient photog Gilles Bensimon, former Elle staffer and current Page Six Magazine columnist—is now going to milk it while doing her best to convey that she's infinitely superior to her castmates, who don't even get invited to Fashion Week, by the way. At a party for her new jewelry line, Kelly shared her opinion of LuAnn, Jill and the rest of the gang with the Observer, and let's just say that if she's as good at designing jewelry as she is at damning with passive aggressive faint praise, she won't need to appear on crappy reality TV for more than one season!
1) Bronson van Wyck and Andrew Fry (left) held a "Sunset Supper" at their house in Southampton for guests including Aby and Samantha Boardman Rosen, Peggy Siegal, Eric Villency, Fernanda Niven, Alex Kramer, and Peter Davis, who were served caviar in little lumps on their hands. According to Davis: "Caviar is the new cocaine... it's decadent and totally rehab-free!" Just think how disappointed his dealer's going to be when he catches wind of this. [Paper]
Paper chatted with Jill Zarin, one of the delightfully repulsive characters on Bravo's Real Housewives of New York City today and asked her the very last question we could possibly imagine anyone asking her: What are you reading these days? "I'm on page 60 of the Barbara Walters autobiography. It's really good and seems very honest." Also: She says she's building a vocational school for orphans in Kenya. [Paper]
Courageous Guest of a Guest blogger Doug braved the unthinkable this weekend: Jill Zarin's 4th of July party in the Hamptons. The Real Housewives of New York City star and her husband hold an annual backyard soirée at their landed estate, and Doug was (un)fortunate enough to receive an invitation. Everything just farted class, from the salmon and lobster salad to the lychee martinis to the "Team Jill" dessert cookies. And look, even RHoNYC costars Bethenny and Countess LuAnn (wearing flamenco water wings) were there, teetering about in all white, mistaking the event for an actual party (sort of) worth covering. A humble and grateful guest, Doug doesn't really dish any dirt, but there are photographs, so you can make up your own tragic stories. Some select few await you after the jump.
Jill Zarin is hosting her annual "raucous holiday bash" this weekend! The tacky Real Housewives of New York cast member and her tacky schmatta salesman husband, Bobby, say they're expecting 200 guests in Sag Harbor. "Potential visitors include neighbor Matt Lauer, Whitney Port from The Hills and Rick and Kathy Hilton," a list that depends, clearly, on the efforts of Bravo producers to secure a few boldfaced names since the party will be filmed (and it isn't as if anyone of note would actually be caught dead in Zarin's house unless they're looking for a little TV exposure). It should be a better event that years past, though. Zarin used to live on a houseboat. [NYP]
