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| Just got to a 70s party!! |
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| Mario in his disco shirt what do you think ?! |
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Ramona And Mario At 70's Party
Pics./tweets from Ramona.
Kim-RHOA
Pic./tweet from Kim.
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| Google me google me @Kimzolciak |
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| Getting ready for my photo shoot!!!!!! |
Lisa And Ed Are In A Movie
Post and pictures from Rags 'N' Riches.
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| Me, @lisawuhartwell and @edhartwell1 http://tinyurl.com/molingbuzz |
RHODC Recap And Fact-Check
Article from the Washington Post.
Time-travel, crashing 101, and old news: D.C. "Housewives" recap and fact-check (#4, Aug. 26)
Mary Amons arrives early at the opening of Ted Gibson's new salon in Chevy Chase. She tells the camera that she feels responsible for getting him established in D.C. "People like to call Washington the Hollywood for ugly people," she explains. (Someone supposedly said this once, but mostly it's lazy feature writers using it in the same indirect way Mary does -- "It's been said that Washington is Hollywood for ugly people..." -- so they can pivot away with a cheesy transition like, "but whoever said that must not have met THESE eligible bachelors/stunning singles/Beltway trendsetters/whatever blah blah blah...") Anyway, says Mary: "I want to put us on the map." But then Michaele shows up in a white backless dress, hugging Ted over and over and saying she loves him. We see Mary bristle, a bit jealous; and wary, too, as Gibson thanks Michaele for "sponsoring" the opening party. All Michaele did, says Mary, is bring some wine.
(And hey! It turns out that this party about to unfold is the ur-D.C. Housewives party, the big camera-mobbed party last fall, the one that pretty much confirmed who the main Housewives would be. You know -- the one we keep running the same damn picture from. That was so far back we didn't even know yet who the mysterious blonde British woman was.)
(And hey again! It also turns out that we are time-traveling! This party, according to the Reliable Source archive of all things Housewives, was way back in September -- just a few days after the America's Polo Cup event we saw in the first episode. And the Gibson salon party was a couple weeks BEFORE the Washingtonian best-dressed party we saw in that same episode, nearly a month before the Paul Wharton birthday party featured in the second, and at least a few weeks before the Turners' Paris trip we saw in last week's episode. It could be that Bravo is taking reality TV to the next level by experimenting with the non-linear narrative form so well deployed by Fellini, Altman, Tarantino, and ABC's "Lost." It's an approach that, upon second or third viewing, renders the hugs and "I love you"s exchanged here by the recently feuding Michaele Salahi and Lynda no longer nonsensical but deeply poignant -- we're in the past, you see, before the ugliness began and they were still friends. Or maybe Bravo got lazy, kind of like when they accidentally inserted footage that made it look like a 3rd District D.C. cop car was escorting the Salahis to a party instead of a Park Police vehicle. Reality!)
Highlights of the party: Mary tells the camera she thinks the Salahis "use their wine to get into places and get to know important people." She smirks to Catherine Ommanney about "people who get into charity just to promote themselves -- social climbers." And Cat exclaims, as if the two of them have discovered some rare affinity, "I despise social climbers!" (Poor social climbers. Won't someone stand up for them?) Then Mary tells the camera, "In D.C., there is a certain standard of integrity that you must demonstrate, otherwise you're not going to make it." (Make up your own joke. I'm getting tired.)
In McLean at Mary's home, we see her oldest daughter Lolly talking about her new job as an executive assistant and her hopes to find a place of her own -- which Mary reminds her better have room for her big, heavily shedding dog Kona. (We met Kona in episode two; Mary has since clarified on her Bravo blog that he is part Bernese mountain dog, part English mastiff.)
Michaele places phone calls inviting everyone to come grape-stomping at Oasis Winery. Lynda can't make it on account of her son's ball game, but she tells Michaele how much she'd like to see her: "I miss my old Michaele-ah." (Lynda appears to be the only person who pronounces the name this way.) To the camera, though, she says "I prefer to save my energy for people I love and care about."
Then we have a scene with Mary, Cat, and Ted Gibson's husband/partner Jason Backe at Contemporaria furniture store in Georgetown (and briefly meet its owner Deborah Kalkstein, who is said to have been in talks early on with producers about maybe being a Housewife; didn't happen, obviously). Mary is irked with Cat for dissing her idea of painting her dining room high-gloss black, and for making fun of the chairs in the store. (Or so it seems -- a definite sense of pique is at least suggested by the editing of this scene, but who ever knows.)
And then, in another magical apropos-of-nothing moment, Jason announces, "I've been dying to tell you this story all day" -- which turns out to be the story of how the Salahis crashed the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner. He says the Salahis invited him and Ted, but when they arrived, it seemed the ticket only said, "admit one." But the Salahis told him not to worry; they maneuvered their way past security, and once in, started working the room and looking for empty chairs. Until finally, "five or six Secret Service walk over" and escorted them out. Mary is horrified, considering that she'd used some of her precious social currency to introduce Ted and Jason around town: "It does not look good to sneak into a party, especially when Secret Service is involved." Says Cat: "I'm really embarrassed for everybody!"
(So, this was a real thing. The news of this particular breach broke last November, a few days after the Salahis became world-famous for crashing the White House state dinner in November. The Salahis, asked about this incident in their first post-crash interview on "Today," insisted that they were there properly as guests of their lawyer Paul Gardner -- which then compelled Gardner to hire his own lawyer. What a mess, huh? However, this is the first we've heard that Ted Gibson and Jason Backe were along for the madcap ride; in Jason's telling, it seems the hairstylists did not get bounced out with the Salahis. We tried to tease out some more details from the hair guys, but Gibson's publicist responded that he's not discussing this.)
A black stretch limo drives around to pick up the whole gang, or much of it, for a day of grape-stomping -- Stacie and her husband Jason, Cat and Mary (both sans husbands), and Jason Backe. (Hey, where's Paul Wharton this episode? Not the same without him!) Meanwhile, Michaele and Tareq are raising an Oasis flag at the winery. "We're back!" Michaele explains, before telling the camera: "This is the first time we've had guests here since the ruling from the judge. It was two and a half years of litigating." (Hmmm? Yeah, this is the family feud we keep telling you about. Tareq's parents Corinne and Dirgham, the founders of Oasis Winery, sued him a few years ago for an amount that ultimately reached $3 million, alleging he ran their business into the ground by embezzling funds and taking wine without payment for his own enterprises; Tareq countersued. Eventually, the winery filed for bankruptcy, as did Tareq's business, and the judge last year dismissed the suits after both sides essentially ran out of money. His parents also filed to evict Tareq and Michaele from their apartment at the winery.)
The drama appears not to have subsided, though. Tareq and Michaele have hired private security, to ward off any interference from his mother. "My mother disrupts everything we try to do," he says. Corinne is on the property (her face is fuzzed out; apparently she didn't sign any waivers to join this little goat rodeo), and the couple fusses that she has beckoned a reporter to the scene. (We know him! Dan McDermott, publisher of the Warren County Report, which has diligently covered the drama around the Salahis in Front Royal and Hume, Va. Dan was either saddened or relieved today that he didn't fully make it on screen. Last fall, he told us about his surreal adventures stumbling upon this shoot -- read about it here, at the end of our story about the making of Housewives -- which involved producers at first shooing him away, and then -- after Tareq delivered to Dan an on-camera soliloquy about how screwed up his family was -- kissing up to him to get him to sign a waiver. Alas, in the end, they didn't use that scene.)
Tareq calls the gang in the limo and leaves a message advising them to pull up to the right of the winery, since "we've had some issues with my mother trying to disturb the day." This gets the gang talking. Mary offers that the only time she's ever seen Michaele without Tareq was way back in the day "when she was behind the counter at Nordstroms selling me makeup." (Catty? Maybe. But true.) Jason Backe tells everyone the story of the CBC gala, which freaks out Stacie. "It's just rude, disrespectful, especially to the African-American community." And when she hears that Tareq has guards at his place: "I've got two young kids, I can't be walking into something with security in the middle of Virginia!" (For a beautiful moment, it seems that Stacie is about to say, "Hey, I didn't sign on for a TV show like THIS!" Bless her heart, she stays in character, doesn't break the fourth wall... but you know that even nine months before the Whoopi-Michaele smackdown, that's exactly what's what she's thinking.)
At the winery, Tareq explains that "my mom is unpredictable, you never know what she is going to do." Cat tells the camera (months later, judging from her grown-out bangs) that all this security is ridiculous. Tareq, in jolly host mode, insists that everyone's going to have to stomp out three gallons of grape juice; he blows a whistle at them. Cat thinks this whole scene is weird, and says so. She refuses to play: "I'm not stomping, I'm spectating... I hate being bossed about." There is much griping about Cat being a bitch, but she endears herself (to us, the viewers) by gaping at the weird staginess of the whole thing: "Is this my life? Is this my life?" Mary and Stacie gamely get into the grape-stomping vat with Michaele (everyone absurdly wearing at least one item of white clothing into the vat), but soon Mary is badmouthing the whole scene to the camera as well: The grapes, she said, aren't legitimate winemaking fruit but the same as the "seedless grapes I have in my refrigerator." (Dan McDermott tells us he learned from a Front Royal grocer told him the Salahis came in that morning to buy a big crate of grapes and tried to haggle over the price. Have we already mentioned that Oasis is more or less defunct, the vineyards no longer producing grapes?) Still she and Jason insist on declaring the event was "great" and "fun," to which Cat replies several times, "Bollocks!" Then, of course, she leaves early with Jason Backe.
The remaining visitors sit down to eat in the winery's vat room, and Michaele starts gossiping about the just-departed Cat. (The following conversation is poignant, because you sense that Michaele is still under the illusion that this is just another season of "Housewives," where they sit at dinner tables and talk about the others, and that Cat is the antagonist character, the Teresa-the-table-flipper if you will, and she herself is the heroine.) Mary sorta defends, or at least explains, Cat -- "If she gets the sense she's not into it, she's out." Says Michaele, "It's not good to insult people -- or do you feel good about that?" (This is a tautology comparable to hating social climbers.) Mary is nudged by the invisible hand of the producers to bring up Jason's story of how they crashed the CBC gala -- and the Salahis sort of dismiss this by saying, well, that's ludicrous. Michaele, to the camera: "No one gets into a place where the president is speaking without tickets!" (On her Bravo blog, Michaele acknowledges there was "a little drama" that night, but denies that "Secret Service" escorted them out. She's splitting hairs here -- CBC officials made it clear the Salahis were escorted out, but by a different breed of security personnel working the event, not Secret Service.) And then she turns it into a why-are-you-talking-about-me-behind-my-back thing, and oh god, we're back to the debate over whether Lynda said that Michaele is too skinny (FOUR episodes they've devoted to this!), with an added back-and-forth about was Mary making fun of Michaele before the Ted Gibson party, or was that just Lynda and Cat. (Ladies, please. If you can't say something incendiary enough to start some table flipping, maybe best to say nothing at all.)
And then, the invisible hand nudges Mary again to look at the tense-faced Tareq and say, "You have something to say." And he say, "I'm just going to say something..." -- and, cliffhanger! The previews make it seem very exciting: Mary asking if Tareq is implicating her daughter, and Tareq threatening that "everybody's going to jail!" and Mary weeping. (We think this involves a criminal charge that Tareq attempted to file against friends of Lolly Amons -- we told you a little bit about it at the end of this story about reality TV hijacking the news cycle -- but we'll just wait to get into it next week. Hell, it's all old news anyway, if it's even news at all.)
Who wins this round? Stacie and Cat, for subtly revealing their deep remorse for being on this show. Cheers!
Time-travel, crashing 101, and old news: D.C. "Housewives" recap and fact-check (#4, Aug. 26)
Welcome back to "The Real Housewives of D.C." -- the episode with seedless grape-stomping, family mysteries, and, best of all, time travel! It's also the episode when the show's producers finally started to catch up with the nine-month-old headlines (i.e., party crashing) that spoiled all its suspense long before it aired. (At least in OUR world, that is. In recent days, we've seen TMZ break the astounding news that someone has sued Tareq Salahi for an alleged unpaid debt of $4,000, and RadarOnline reveal that he's embroiled in a feud with his mother. To which we can only say: OLD! Those of you who choose to get your "Housewives" recaps from The Paper That Brought You Watergate already know that for the Salahis, a $4,000 lawsuit is chump change -- a Post investigation last year found at least 30 such lawsuits filed against them since 2004, many in the five figures -- and the messy, sad family feud over Oasis Winery has been simmering in our pages for three years now.)
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| Photo: Bravo |
It opens with Lynda Erkiletian, in her Georgetown Ritz condo, cooking for her boyfriend Ebong... and her roughly college-aged kids, two of whom are wearing colorful patterned footed PJs. (Maybe they felt the need to ramp it up, personality-wise, so as not to get lost on Bravo's cutting-room floor.) She talks more about her search for a new home (she sold the Ritz place around the time this was being filmed last fall and moved to McLean). "The apartment just is not big enough," she tells the camera. "I'm going to miss Georgetown -- nothing like security and a concierge and 24-hour room service." (True, actually -- that's what it's like living in the Ritz.) But, "everything I've put my family through in the last five years, I owe it to them to give them a yard." (Aren't these kids too old to need a yard? Of course, one's never too old for footie pajamas...)
Stacie Turner sits in her living room with three women identified as her sorority sisters (she is a Delta Sigma Theta), back in town for Howard University Homecoming. One of them asks (in an apropos-of-nothing way that I'm sure wasn't prompted by a producer) for an update on Stacie's search for her birth parents. Revelation: Her birth mother, it turns out, was white, of Scandinavian descent -- and her birth father was a Nigerian man she met in the Peace Corps. Who doesn't know that Stacie exists. And the birth mother is doing nothing to help Stacie (who was adopted out of foster care, now her big cause) find him, and has been keeping Stacie a secret from her white family, which Stacie finds hurtful. And frustrating -- she wants to know who her people were. (This is easily the most interesting thing to happen on this show thus far, so obviously producers have to cut away from it pretty quickly.)Mary Amons arrives early at the opening of Ted Gibson's new salon in Chevy Chase. She tells the camera that she feels responsible for getting him established in D.C. "People like to call Washington the Hollywood for ugly people," she explains. (Someone supposedly said this once, but mostly it's lazy feature writers using it in the same indirect way Mary does -- "It's been said that Washington is Hollywood for ugly people..." -- so they can pivot away with a cheesy transition like, "but whoever said that must not have met THESE eligible bachelors/stunning singles/Beltway trendsetters/whatever blah blah blah...") Anyway, says Mary: "I want to put us on the map." But then Michaele shows up in a white backless dress, hugging Ted over and over and saying she loves him. We see Mary bristle, a bit jealous; and wary, too, as Gibson thanks Michaele for "sponsoring" the opening party. All Michaele did, says Mary, is bring some wine.
(And hey! It turns out that this party about to unfold is the ur-D.C. Housewives party, the big camera-mobbed party last fall, the one that pretty much confirmed who the main Housewives would be. You know -- the one we keep running the same damn picture from. That was so far back we didn't even know yet who the mysterious blonde British woman was.)
(And hey again! It also turns out that we are time-traveling! This party, according to the Reliable Source archive of all things Housewives, was way back in September -- just a few days after the America's Polo Cup event we saw in the first episode. And the Gibson salon party was a couple weeks BEFORE the Washingtonian best-dressed party we saw in that same episode, nearly a month before the Paul Wharton birthday party featured in the second, and at least a few weeks before the Turners' Paris trip we saw in last week's episode. It could be that Bravo is taking reality TV to the next level by experimenting with the non-linear narrative form so well deployed by Fellini, Altman, Tarantino, and ABC's "Lost." It's an approach that, upon second or third viewing, renders the hugs and "I love you"s exchanged here by the recently feuding Michaele Salahi and Lynda no longer nonsensical but deeply poignant -- we're in the past, you see, before the ugliness began and they were still friends. Or maybe Bravo got lazy, kind of like when they accidentally inserted footage that made it look like a 3rd District D.C. cop car was escorting the Salahis to a party instead of a Park Police vehicle. Reality!)
Highlights of the party: Mary tells the camera she thinks the Salahis "use their wine to get into places and get to know important people." She smirks to Catherine Ommanney about "people who get into charity just to promote themselves -- social climbers." And Cat exclaims, as if the two of them have discovered some rare affinity, "I despise social climbers!" (Poor social climbers. Won't someone stand up for them?) Then Mary tells the camera, "In D.C., there is a certain standard of integrity that you must demonstrate, otherwise you're not going to make it." (Make up your own joke. I'm getting tired.)
In McLean at Mary's home, we see her oldest daughter Lolly talking about her new job as an executive assistant and her hopes to find a place of her own -- which Mary reminds her better have room for her big, heavily shedding dog Kona. (We met Kona in episode two; Mary has since clarified on her Bravo blog that he is part Bernese mountain dog, part English mastiff.)
Michaele places phone calls inviting everyone to come grape-stomping at Oasis Winery. Lynda can't make it on account of her son's ball game, but she tells Michaele how much she'd like to see her: "I miss my old Michaele-ah." (Lynda appears to be the only person who pronounces the name this way.) To the camera, though, she says "I prefer to save my energy for people I love and care about."
Then we have a scene with Mary, Cat, and Ted Gibson's husband/partner Jason Backe at Contemporaria furniture store in Georgetown (and briefly meet its owner Deborah Kalkstein, who is said to have been in talks early on with producers about maybe being a Housewife; didn't happen, obviously). Mary is irked with Cat for dissing her idea of painting her dining room high-gloss black, and for making fun of the chairs in the store. (Or so it seems -- a definite sense of pique is at least suggested by the editing of this scene, but who ever knows.)
And then, in another magical apropos-of-nothing moment, Jason announces, "I've been dying to tell you this story all day" -- which turns out to be the story of how the Salahis crashed the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner. He says the Salahis invited him and Ted, but when they arrived, it seemed the ticket only said, "admit one." But the Salahis told him not to worry; they maneuvered their way past security, and once in, started working the room and looking for empty chairs. Until finally, "five or six Secret Service walk over" and escorted them out. Mary is horrified, considering that she'd used some of her precious social currency to introduce Ted and Jason around town: "It does not look good to sneak into a party, especially when Secret Service is involved." Says Cat: "I'm really embarrassed for everybody!"
(So, this was a real thing. The news of this particular breach broke last November, a few days after the Salahis became world-famous for crashing the White House state dinner in November. The Salahis, asked about this incident in their first post-crash interview on "Today," insisted that they were there properly as guests of their lawyer Paul Gardner -- which then compelled Gardner to hire his own lawyer. What a mess, huh? However, this is the first we've heard that Ted Gibson and Jason Backe were along for the madcap ride; in Jason's telling, it seems the hairstylists did not get bounced out with the Salahis. We tried to tease out some more details from the hair guys, but Gibson's publicist responded that he's not discussing this.)
A black stretch limo drives around to pick up the whole gang, or much of it, for a day of grape-stomping -- Stacie and her husband Jason, Cat and Mary (both sans husbands), and Jason Backe. (Hey, where's Paul Wharton this episode? Not the same without him!) Meanwhile, Michaele and Tareq are raising an Oasis flag at the winery. "We're back!" Michaele explains, before telling the camera: "This is the first time we've had guests here since the ruling from the judge. It was two and a half years of litigating." (Hmmm? Yeah, this is the family feud we keep telling you about. Tareq's parents Corinne and Dirgham, the founders of Oasis Winery, sued him a few years ago for an amount that ultimately reached $3 million, alleging he ran their business into the ground by embezzling funds and taking wine without payment for his own enterprises; Tareq countersued. Eventually, the winery filed for bankruptcy, as did Tareq's business, and the judge last year dismissed the suits after both sides essentially ran out of money. His parents also filed to evict Tareq and Michaele from their apartment at the winery.)
The drama appears not to have subsided, though. Tareq and Michaele have hired private security, to ward off any interference from his mother. "My mother disrupts everything we try to do," he says. Corinne is on the property (her face is fuzzed out; apparently she didn't sign any waivers to join this little goat rodeo), and the couple fusses that she has beckoned a reporter to the scene. (We know him! Dan McDermott, publisher of the Warren County Report, which has diligently covered the drama around the Salahis in Front Royal and Hume, Va. Dan was either saddened or relieved today that he didn't fully make it on screen. Last fall, he told us about his surreal adventures stumbling upon this shoot -- read about it here, at the end of our story about the making of Housewives -- which involved producers at first shooing him away, and then -- after Tareq delivered to Dan an on-camera soliloquy about how screwed up his family was -- kissing up to him to get him to sign a waiver. Alas, in the end, they didn't use that scene.)
Tareq calls the gang in the limo and leaves a message advising them to pull up to the right of the winery, since "we've had some issues with my mother trying to disturb the day." This gets the gang talking. Mary offers that the only time she's ever seen Michaele without Tareq was way back in the day "when she was behind the counter at Nordstroms selling me makeup." (Catty? Maybe. But true.) Jason Backe tells everyone the story of the CBC gala, which freaks out Stacie. "It's just rude, disrespectful, especially to the African-American community." And when she hears that Tareq has guards at his place: "I've got two young kids, I can't be walking into something with security in the middle of Virginia!" (For a beautiful moment, it seems that Stacie is about to say, "Hey, I didn't sign on for a TV show like THIS!" Bless her heart, she stays in character, doesn't break the fourth wall... but you know that even nine months before the Whoopi-Michaele smackdown, that's exactly what's what she's thinking.)
At the winery, Tareq explains that "my mom is unpredictable, you never know what she is going to do." Cat tells the camera (months later, judging from her grown-out bangs) that all this security is ridiculous. Tareq, in jolly host mode, insists that everyone's going to have to stomp out three gallons of grape juice; he blows a whistle at them. Cat thinks this whole scene is weird, and says so. She refuses to play: "I'm not stomping, I'm spectating... I hate being bossed about." There is much griping about Cat being a bitch, but she endears herself (to us, the viewers) by gaping at the weird staginess of the whole thing: "Is this my life? Is this my life?" Mary and Stacie gamely get into the grape-stomping vat with Michaele (everyone absurdly wearing at least one item of white clothing into the vat), but soon Mary is badmouthing the whole scene to the camera as well: The grapes, she said, aren't legitimate winemaking fruit but the same as the "seedless grapes I have in my refrigerator." (Dan McDermott tells us he learned from a Front Royal grocer told him the Salahis came in that morning to buy a big crate of grapes and tried to haggle over the price. Have we already mentioned that Oasis is more or less defunct, the vineyards no longer producing grapes?) Still she and Jason insist on declaring the event was "great" and "fun," to which Cat replies several times, "Bollocks!" Then, of course, she leaves early with Jason Backe.
The remaining visitors sit down to eat in the winery's vat room, and Michaele starts gossiping about the just-departed Cat. (The following conversation is poignant, because you sense that Michaele is still under the illusion that this is just another season of "Housewives," where they sit at dinner tables and talk about the others, and that Cat is the antagonist character, the Teresa-the-table-flipper if you will, and she herself is the heroine.) Mary sorta defends, or at least explains, Cat -- "If she gets the sense she's not into it, she's out." Says Michaele, "It's not good to insult people -- or do you feel good about that?" (This is a tautology comparable to hating social climbers.) Mary is nudged by the invisible hand of the producers to bring up Jason's story of how they crashed the CBC gala -- and the Salahis sort of dismiss this by saying, well, that's ludicrous. Michaele, to the camera: "No one gets into a place where the president is speaking without tickets!" (On her Bravo blog, Michaele acknowledges there was "a little drama" that night, but denies that "Secret Service" escorted them out. She's splitting hairs here -- CBC officials made it clear the Salahis were escorted out, but by a different breed of security personnel working the event, not Secret Service.) And then she turns it into a why-are-you-talking-about-me-behind-my-back thing, and oh god, we're back to the debate over whether Lynda said that Michaele is too skinny (FOUR episodes they've devoted to this!), with an added back-and-forth about was Mary making fun of Michaele before the Ted Gibson party, or was that just Lynda and Cat. (Ladies, please. If you can't say something incendiary enough to start some table flipping, maybe best to say nothing at all.)
And then, the invisible hand nudges Mary again to look at the tense-faced Tareq and say, "You have something to say." And he say, "I'm just going to say something..." -- and, cliffhanger! The previews make it seem very exciting: Mary asking if Tareq is implicating her daughter, and Tareq threatening that "everybody's going to jail!" and Mary weeping. (We think this involves a criminal charge that Tareq attempted to file against friends of Lolly Amons -- we told you a little bit about it at the end of this story about reality TV hijacking the news cycle -- but we'll just wait to get into it next week. Hell, it's all old news anyway, if it's even news at all.)
Who wins this round? Stacie and Cat, for subtly revealing their deep remorse for being on this show. Cheers!
Teresa Does Not Like To Be Held Back
Article from US Magazine.
When a preview clip of the Real Housewives of New Jersey reunion special hit the web last Monday -- full of shrieking, shoving, throwing and animalistic rage -- fans were shocked.
Costar Caroline Manzo's take? "There are no words," she told Us at Thursday's event, shaking her head. "Just no words. I could not compose a rational thought in my head for two days [after the taping]. It took me two days to regroup."
In fact, she adds, "I went to get dinner after the reunion and Ashton Kutcher was [at the same restaurant]. My mind was so completely out of it, I didn't even notice I was sitting next to him. That’s how crazy it was!"
Watching the reunion clips, Manzo says, was "the best lesson in the world. How people have the opportunity to look at themselves from the outside in...I learned that I'm very tough...When I watch [the reunion] I can't help but say 'damn, I'm tough!'"
Along with Giudice and Caroline Manzo, fellow stars Ashley Holmes, Jacqueline Laurita, Dina and Lauren Manzo will perform in My Big Gay Italian Wedding from Sept. 1 to 4; a portion of the proceeds raised from tickets sales will benefit Marriage Equality New York.
When a preview clip of the Real Housewives of New Jersey reunion special hit the web last Monday -- full of shrieking, shoving, throwing and animalistic rage -- fans were shocked.
So were the housewives themselves, who actually lived through the epic brawl, and have seen the two-part reunion in its entirety.
"I didn't believe my eyes!" Teresa Giudice told UsMagazine.com at Thursday's preview presentation of My Big Gay Italian Wedding in NYC.
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| Photo: Bravo |
In the clip, Giudice loudly threatened nemesis Danielle Staub, screaming "B*tch, I'm gonna pin you down!" She later threw a pillow at Staub -- and even shoved the reunion's host and mediator, Andy Cohen.
"I didn't mean to shove Andy," Giudice told Us without explaining further. "I love Andy." Of her other histrionics during the special, she said: "When I'm attacked, I attack back. I don't like to be held back or touched...Listen, I know how to control myself. Just don't hold me back!"Costar Caroline Manzo's take? "There are no words," she told Us at Thursday's event, shaking her head. "Just no words. I could not compose a rational thought in my head for two days [after the taping]. It took me two days to regroup."
In fact, she adds, "I went to get dinner after the reunion and Ashton Kutcher was [at the same restaurant]. My mind was so completely out of it, I didn't even notice I was sitting next to him. That’s how crazy it was!"
Watching the reunion clips, Manzo says, was "the best lesson in the world. How people have the opportunity to look at themselves from the outside in...I learned that I'm very tough...When I watch [the reunion] I can't help but say 'damn, I'm tough!'"
Along with Giudice and Caroline Manzo, fellow stars Ashley Holmes, Jacqueline Laurita, Dina and Lauren Manzo will perform in My Big Gay Italian Wedding from Sept. 1 to 4; a portion of the proceeds raised from tickets sales will benefit Marriage Equality New York.
Jill And Kelly Attend US Open Player Party
Jill and Kelly at the USTA and Heineken's 2010 US Open Player Party at The Empire Hotel Rooftopin New York City.
Alexis,Jim And Lynne At Fred Segal
Alexis,Jim and Lynne attend the Belle Coeur by Jamie Jo Harris Launch, Fred Segal, Los Angeles.
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| Photo: StarTraks |
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| Photo: StarTraks |
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| Photo: StarTraks |
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| Photo: StarTraks |
Kandi's New Single "Leave You"
Singer/songwriter Kandi Burruss of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" and formerly of Xscape debuts her new single "Leave You" -- exclusively on ESSENCE.com. Also, Kandi describes the inspiration behind the track... "Working on this album, I knew I wanted to get back in the studio with Jazze Pha, a long-term friend and great producer. He and the two co-writers of the song are very talented people who I feel really understand me as an artist.
"I went into the session wanting to record a real R&B song that took you back to my Xscape days. We were known for songs that felt good, had a great groove to them, and displayed strong vocals and hard hitting production. 'Leave You' -- in my opinion -- is my 2010 version of that.
"The song was not about a specific situation of mine but more my desire to create that record everyone can relate to. If someone is not doing the things they did to get you when they have you -- it is time to take that walk and leave!"
Ramona Standoffish To Danielle At Maury Taping
Post from US Magazine.
On Thursday, The Real Housewives of New York star Ramona Singer joined New Jersey housewife Danielle Staub and Atlanta housewife NeNe Leakes to tape an upcoming episode of The Maury Povich Show in which they give real-life housewives makeovers.
Staub, 48, didn't act out; Singer, 53, apparently did.
Backstage, Singer was "standoffish, antisocial and on her Blackberry the whole time," a crew source tells UsMagazine.com. "She seemed jealous that people were making more of a fuss about Danielle and asking for a picture with her."
The insider says that when the three housewives eventually posed for photos together, "Ramona suddenly sat down and said, 'I’m not taking any more pictures.'"
After taping the in-studio segment, they headed to NYC's John Barrett Salon for the makeovers. "Ramona told the producers, 'I'm hungry! I'm going to lunch and then Bergdorf Goodman,'" the source tells Us. "So she and NeNe went to lunch, leaving Danielle alone at the salon. The crew had to shoot around NeNe and Ramona until they showed up nearly an hour late."
When she returned, Singer demanded "the best hair and makeup person at John Barrett," snipes the source. "It was ridiculous -- she was already made up from the studio!"
Adds the insider, "She was a total handful! She threw a tantrum about everything!"
On Thursday, The Real Housewives of New York star Ramona Singer joined New Jersey housewife Danielle Staub and Atlanta housewife NeNe Leakes to tape an upcoming episode of The Maury Povich Show in which they give real-life housewives makeovers.
Staub, 48, didn't act out; Singer, 53, apparently did.
Backstage, Singer was "standoffish, antisocial and on her Blackberry the whole time," a crew source tells UsMagazine.com. "She seemed jealous that people were making more of a fuss about Danielle and asking for a picture with her."
The insider says that when the three housewives eventually posed for photos together, "Ramona suddenly sat down and said, 'I’m not taking any more pictures.'"
After taping the in-studio segment, they headed to NYC's John Barrett Salon for the makeovers. "Ramona told the producers, 'I'm hungry! I'm going to lunch and then Bergdorf Goodman,'" the source tells Us. "So she and NeNe went to lunch, leaving Danielle alone at the salon. The crew had to shoot around NeNe and Ramona until they showed up nearly an hour late."
When she returned, Singer demanded "the best hair and makeup person at John Barrett," snipes the source. "It was ridiculous -- she was already made up from the studio!"
Adds the insider, "She was a total handful! She threw a tantrum about everything!"
Alex Talks About Signing With NY Model Management
Post from Hollywood Life.
The Real Housewives of New York City star Alex McCord just got a HUGE modeling deal! “I just signed with the celebrity division of New York Model Management,” Alex told HollywoodLife.com exclusively Aug. 26 at the 11th Annual BNP Paribas Taste of Tennis Charity Event at the W Hotel in NYC.
“I had a great time walking the runway before,” she told us. (Remember when Alex walked the runway for a charity event in season three?) “I’ve done a lot of photo shoots especially recently for building up this book and I had fun doing that too. I think that usually the way it works is the agent goes to clients and they figure out what models they want to use for what.”
Though no gigs are lined up yet, it doesn’t seem like Alex is that picky about who she works for first. “I love clothing as wearable art. I said that on season one of the show,” Alex said. “There are so many amazing designers that are so creative.”
And at least Simon is super supportive of Alex’s new career. “I’m super proud,” Simon gushed. “An old woman can still be beautiful, look at that!”
“I’m actually the youngest one on our franchise,” Alex jokingly reminded him. “Thank you very much!”
By:Lindsey DiMattina
Do you think Alex has what it takes to walk the walk in the modeling world?
The Real Housewives of New York City star Alex McCord just got a HUGE modeling deal! “I just signed with the celebrity division of New York Model Management,” Alex told HollywoodLife.com exclusively Aug. 26 at the 11th Annual BNP Paribas Taste of Tennis Charity Event at the W Hotel in NYC.“The director of the agency and Simon and I had all met some years ago at a fashion event. We kept in touch,” Alex said of how she got the contract.
“We kept in touch with him as friends,” Alex’s husband, Simon van Kempen explained. “Until we went out to dinner with him again a month ago, it was never on the radar.”
“It was just something that was brought up and seemed to make sense,” Alex added. “This is all happening literally just now. I’m excited. It seems like a lot of fun.”
“I had a great time walking the runway before,” she told us. (Remember when Alex walked the runway for a charity event in season three?) “I’ve done a lot of photo shoots especially recently for building up this book and I had fun doing that too. I think that usually the way it works is the agent goes to clients and they figure out what models they want to use for what.”
Though no gigs are lined up yet, it doesn’t seem like Alex is that picky about who she works for first. “I love clothing as wearable art. I said that on season one of the show,” Alex said. “There are so many amazing designers that are so creative.”
And at least Simon is super supportive of Alex’s new career. “I’m super proud,” Simon gushed. “An old woman can still be beautiful, look at that!”
“I’m actually the youngest one on our franchise,” Alex jokingly reminded him. “Thank you very much!”
Watching The RHODC Is Difficult For The Ommanney's
Article from the NY Times.
By SARAH WILDMAN
EARLIER this summer, as he stood alone in the lobby of Washington’s Mandarin Oriental hotel with a packed car parked out front, there was no one to say goodbye to Charles Ommanney despite a decade of life in the city. Six months earlier, he had a wife; two children; three dogs; a house in Chevy Chase, Md.; and a gaggle of cameras following him around.
Every Thursday night, you can still see that earlier version of Charles Ommanney’s life, like a “Twilight Zone” episode in which, in a strange quirk of post-modernity, his previous life continues to play out in real time even as his current life runs in the opposite direction. That’s because Mr. Ommanney, on Bravo at least, is Cat Ommanney’s spouse on “The Real Housewives of D.C.”
Before the divorce, the Ommanneys’ story was the stuff of rom-coms, or reality heaven. Known for bowling over presidents and women (George W. Bush nicknamed him Chuckles and, for his wild hair, Lion King) during nine years of covering the White House for Newsweek, he was an award-winning photojournalist who had chronicled wars in Rwanda and Bosnia, among other assignments. She was a summer fling from 1989, the glamorous baby sister of a friend, who got back in touch in 2008 after two children, an infamous kiss with Prince Harry that won her tabloid fame, and, between them, two marriages.
After a five-month courtship, Catherine followed Charles Ommanney to Washington with her children, where they rented a spacious pale yellow clapboard house with a wraparound porch. About a year later, Ms. Ommanney was being filmed in scenes of parties and polo, and Charles had become a father to the girls.
“D.C. has its own code of conduct, and it’s all about who you know,” intones one of the housewives in the opening voice-over of the reality show’s first episode. Mr. Ommanney, a reluctant TV presence, is the nearly invisible ballast for the cast, the one with real access to power in Washington, or at least to the Oval Office. His wife plays a putative mean girl (the show’s answer to Danielle Staub of New Jersey’s “Housewives” and Jill Zarin of the New York franchise), thus far exhibiting racially awkward social skills. Onscreen, she’s wrapping up her book, a kiss-and-tell on leaving her first marriage. She’s all brash British tell-it-like-it-is, and all very much in love with her dashing new mate.
But that was 2009. Since the show wrapped in November, the marriage has imploded after less than two years, the house’s lease has expired, the book is on hold and, while Ms. Ommanney will move from London back to Washington next week (her children, by custody agreement with their father, will remain in England), her television husband has fled the city.
“To be a photojournalist at the highest levels like that requires a great deal of innate political skill,” said Jon Meacham, the former Newsweek editor in chief. “You have to at once make people so comfortable with you that, at hours of great tension and great trial, they let you into the room. Then, once you have talked your way into the room, you have to disappear. It’s a very tricky skill set. Charles has it.”
It’s hard to believe that Mr. Ommanney, after years in the news media, was really so surprised. Washington is a city where quiet power often trumps the kind of visibility other parts of the country crave. “In a way, I was naïve and foolish to sign off on doing this,” he said. “But, at the end of the day, it was innocent. I wanted happiness for someone I was in love with. I put all my reservations aside and said: ‘Go for it. Do it if it makes you happy.’ Then I regretted it. I lost touch with everyone, and mix that with my marriage falling apart and the show taking over, it was very sad.”
The trick of this sort of docudrama is a sense of vérité mixed with a dash of humor; we all know the scenes may be staged or reshot, we all know the friendships are encouraged or discouraged by editors and producers, directors and lights.
The trade-off is success. Many of the women of “Real Housewives” of other locales have spun their screen time into fame, fortune, their own shows. Even some of those whose relationships fall apart profess happiness with their television life.
But what happens to the ones whose private lives play out onscreen more because they’re entwined with a character than because they’ve sought fame?
Christopher Morris, a close friend of Mr. Ommanney’s who covered the Bush White House for Time magazine during both terms, describes the reaction of fellow correspondents as “shock and dismay” that Mr. Ommanney had signed on for reality television. “Charles is a very solitary person,” said Mr. Morris, noting that Mr. Ommanney often skipped White House correspondents’ events. “He’s low profile, so being thrust into that environment, it seems odd.”
Richard Wolffe, a close friend and a former Newsweek colleague, said: “He was doing it for her, he was very reluctantly involved and I think that comes across. He wanted minimal participation. Preferably none. But you can’t. You can’t be half pregnant with these shows.”
Ms. Ommanney, reached by phone in London, said she was pleased with the show, and her new friends, but called watching her short marriage on television “absolutely heartbreaking.”
“The fact that I am set up to be the villain, I could probably have lived with if I was still in my life with my husband and family,” she said. “But having all that gone has been incredibly challenging, and I’ve had to do a lot of soul searching about how we’ve got to this point.”
“Every time I see Charles,” she added of watching the show, “especially last week, when he comes and surprises me on a photo shoot, and the look of love for him I have, and the admiration I had and in some way still have — it’s painful.”
On that, at least, the two still agree.
By SARAH WILDMAN
EARLIER this summer, as he stood alone in the lobby of Washington’s Mandarin Oriental hotel with a packed car parked out front, there was no one to say goodbye to Charles Ommanney despite a decade of life in the city. Six months earlier, he had a wife; two children; three dogs; a house in Chevy Chase, Md.; and a gaggle of cameras following him around.
Every Thursday night, you can still see that earlier version of Charles Ommanney’s life, like a “Twilight Zone” episode in which, in a strange quirk of post-modernity, his previous life continues to play out in real time even as his current life runs in the opposite direction. That’s because Mr. Ommanney, on Bravo at least, is Cat Ommanney’s spouse on “The Real Housewives of D.C.”
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| Photo: Bravo |
“I haven’t seen it, but I’ve seen the previews and I made a promise to myself to not sit and watch my ex-wife,” Mr. Ommanney, sounding miserable, said by telephone from Miami. “It’s just too painful. I’ve got eight more weeks of hundreds of Facebook requests from people I don’t know. I’d almost like to go and live in Katmandu. I have very few regrets in my life, but this is the one.” Once, he points out, if you Googled “Ommanney,” you would have discovered three centuries of naval admirals going back to his great-great-great-grandfather. Now you find rumors about the marriage breakup and snarky tattling on the show.
Before the divorce, the Ommanneys’ story was the stuff of rom-coms, or reality heaven. Known for bowling over presidents and women (George W. Bush nicknamed him Chuckles and, for his wild hair, Lion King) during nine years of covering the White House for Newsweek, he was an award-winning photojournalist who had chronicled wars in Rwanda and Bosnia, among other assignments. She was a summer fling from 1989, the glamorous baby sister of a friend, who got back in touch in 2008 after two children, an infamous kiss with Prince Harry that won her tabloid fame, and, between them, two marriages.
After a five-month courtship, Catherine followed Charles Ommanney to Washington with her children, where they rented a spacious pale yellow clapboard house with a wraparound porch. About a year later, Ms. Ommanney was being filmed in scenes of parties and polo, and Charles had become a father to the girls.
“D.C. has its own code of conduct, and it’s all about who you know,” intones one of the housewives in the opening voice-over of the reality show’s first episode. Mr. Ommanney, a reluctant TV presence, is the nearly invisible ballast for the cast, the one with real access to power in Washington, or at least to the Oval Office. His wife plays a putative mean girl (the show’s answer to Danielle Staub of New Jersey’s “Housewives” and Jill Zarin of the New York franchise), thus far exhibiting racially awkward social skills. Onscreen, she’s wrapping up her book, a kiss-and-tell on leaving her first marriage. She’s all brash British tell-it-like-it-is, and all very much in love with her dashing new mate.
But that was 2009. Since the show wrapped in November, the marriage has imploded after less than two years, the house’s lease has expired, the book is on hold and, while Ms. Ommanney will move from London back to Washington next week (her children, by custody agreement with their father, will remain in England), her television husband has fled the city.
“To be a photojournalist at the highest levels like that requires a great deal of innate political skill,” said Jon Meacham, the former Newsweek editor in chief. “You have to at once make people so comfortable with you that, at hours of great tension and great trial, they let you into the room. Then, once you have talked your way into the room, you have to disappear. It’s a very tricky skill set. Charles has it.”
But it is just that ability to fade into the woodwork that Mr. Ommanney has lost by becoming a cast member. Now he stands out wherever he goes, even if he’s with the vice president.
“With any reality show, you have to be careful — you can lose control of your own reputation very easily,” said Chris Edwards, the White House director of press advance under President George W. Bush, who worked closely with Mr. Ommanney and remembers him as well-respected and well-liked even if his political views “didn’t match” those of the former president.
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| Photo: Bravo |
Described by friends and colleagues alike as never one to step in front of the camera, even to promote his own work, suddenly Mr. Ommanney has become the story. As the weeks of filming progressed, he stopped contacting friends. “Primarily I was embarrassed,” he said. “Secondly, people didn’t want anything to do with it. People were like: ‘Are there going to be cameras there? I don’t want dinner. Are there people from Bravo filming it? Are you miked?’ ”
It’s hard to believe that Mr. Ommanney, after years in the news media, was really so surprised. Washington is a city where quiet power often trumps the kind of visibility other parts of the country crave. “In a way, I was naïve and foolish to sign off on doing this,” he said. “But, at the end of the day, it was innocent. I wanted happiness for someone I was in love with. I put all my reservations aside and said: ‘Go for it. Do it if it makes you happy.’ Then I regretted it. I lost touch with everyone, and mix that with my marriage falling apart and the show taking over, it was very sad.”
The trick of this sort of docudrama is a sense of vérité mixed with a dash of humor; we all know the scenes may be staged or reshot, we all know the friendships are encouraged or discouraged by editors and producers, directors and lights.
The trade-off is success. Many of the women of “Real Housewives” of other locales have spun their screen time into fame, fortune, their own shows. Even some of those whose relationships fall apart profess happiness with their television life.
But what happens to the ones whose private lives play out onscreen more because they’re entwined with a character than because they’ve sought fame?
Christopher Morris, a close friend of Mr. Ommanney’s who covered the Bush White House for Time magazine during both terms, describes the reaction of fellow correspondents as “shock and dismay” that Mr. Ommanney had signed on for reality television. “Charles is a very solitary person,” said Mr. Morris, noting that Mr. Ommanney often skipped White House correspondents’ events. “He’s low profile, so being thrust into that environment, it seems odd.”
Richard Wolffe, a close friend and a former Newsweek colleague, said: “He was doing it for her, he was very reluctantly involved and I think that comes across. He wanted minimal participation. Preferably none. But you can’t. You can’t be half pregnant with these shows.”
Ms. Ommanney, reached by phone in London, said she was pleased with the show, and her new friends, but called watching her short marriage on television “absolutely heartbreaking.”
“The fact that I am set up to be the villain, I could probably have lived with if I was still in my life with my husband and family,” she said. “But having all that gone has been incredibly challenging, and I’ve had to do a lot of soul searching about how we’ve got to this point.”
“Every time I see Charles,” she added of watching the show, “especially last week, when he comes and surprises me on a photo shoot, and the look of love for him I have, and the admiration I had and in some way still have — it’s painful.”
On that, at least, the two still agree.
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