Dishes the Delicious Dirt on Real Wives’ Real Lives In NYC’s Upper Crust

Singapore, 1 June 2009 – When one can’t tell between reel and real, you know it’s juicily good reality TV.   Five larger-than-life personalities living the high life in the Upper East Side, will soon have their amazingly petty feuds and extravagant spending habits magnified onscreen. A show from Bravo, The Real Housewives of New York City delivered the highest first season numbers of a docu-drama in Bravo’s history; its popularity undoubtedly catalysed by its deliciously catty crossfires. Tune in for the highly entertaining bitch fest, premiering 5 June 2009, first and exclusively on Sony Entertainment Television!

If you can’t help but be drawn into the scandalous reel lives of Manhattan’s elite in Gossip Girl, don’t miss this irresistible reality series where these grown-up girls thrive in melodrama that are bigger, wilder and way bitchier! You will meet five attractive socialites who live the dream with summer vacations in the Hamptons, private-jetting to swanky detox centres in Martha’s Vineyard (an exclusive island off the US east coast where the rich frolic in summer) and snapping up front row seats at fashion shows.

Here’s a sneak peek into the lives of these privileged glamour puss – Alex McCord, 35 –  “In New York, status is everything to a certain group of people.”

Alex McCord is a busy Manhattan career woman working at a Fortune 500 retailing company in the visual merchandising world. Always on-the-go, she juggles being a mother to her two children, Francois and Johan, a wife to her devoted husband and constant sidekick Simon van Kempen, and a thriving social calendar. After an event-filled and somewhat drama-filled excursion to the Hamptons for the summer, as well as their annual trip to St. Bart's, the van Kempens return to the city and their active social life as one of the recognizable faces on the New York City scene. The couple even hires an au pair to speak French to their sons just so they can be effectively bilingual.  With both their boys in school, Alex and Simon begin a major home renovation project; stage two of what will help them complete their dream Brooklyn home.

Alex and Simon are a surprisingly tight-knit couple; virtually inseparable whether it’s shopping, spa or even a girls’ night out, much to the chagrin of the other housewives intent on getting away from their spouses.

Bethenny Frankel, 38 –  “I’ve been engaged three times.”
Bethenny is no novice when it comes to reality TV. Other than being the first runner-up on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, Bethenny is also a celebrity chef and health-food columnist. Bethenny is taking the Hamptons and Manhattan by storm, attending numerous social and charity events while managing both her burgeoning career as a natural foods chef and her line of baked goods, Bethenny Bakes. Somewhere in her busy schedule she found time to write a book on healthy living - Naturally Thin: Unleash Your Skinnygirl & Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting, as well as a line of "SkinnyGirl" cocktails. Bethenny can certainly consider herself an authority on losing weight. After dropping 20 lbs since college, Bethenny went under the knife for a breast lift so that she “didn’t feel like a saggy mess” but would never opt for the needle.
Having been engaged three times, Bethenny is the Housewife-wannabe on the show and is looking to settle down with Mr Right.

LuAnn de Lesseps, 43 – “I never feel guilty about being privileged.”
Then there’s LuAnn Le Lesseps, a real-life Countess who married into the aristocratic French bloodline. Besides teaching etiquette on daytime television, she also has her own TV show called ‘the Countess Report’. With live-in housekeeper Rosie out of the country for the summer, LuAnn balanced running a household with her two active children and still found time to participate in her active social life, where she attended numerous social events and was honored for her charity work at a major Hamptons affair. Obsessed with her claim to nobility, she even berated fellow housewife Bethenny when the latter neglected to introduce her as the Countess to a chauffeur.

With daughter Victoria headed off to boarding school, LuAnn uses her free time to pursue being a writer, sharing her vast knowledge of manners from her experience as a Countess to ink a book deal on manners and etiquette, called Class With The Countess.

Jill Zarin, 45 – calls her 32G chest a “curse”
Jill Zarin is still one of the busiest Housewives around, juggling a jam-packed social calendar full of charity events and galas, preparing daughter Allyson for college, and helping her husband Bobby run their fast-growing business Zarin Fabrics. When Ally heads to France to study for the summer, Jill is left with empty-nest syndrome and quickly immerses herself working for the “Help for Orphans” charity and being the consummate hostess in their Hamptons home. After a somewhat drama-filled summer, she returns to Manhattan and wastes no time gathering all the other Housewives to help her friend Christina with a major charity event, “People Reaching Out,” as well as a complete re-design of her entire Upper East Side apartment.

Jill also frequently hangs out with Brad Boles, her so-called ‘gay second husband’, who does all the fun things with her from wardrobe, jewels, shopping to lunch. Boles insists he is ‘what every fabulous New York woman needs.’ He adds, “I tell Jill how horrible she is and how fabulous she is. We’re like a couple married 50 years.” Recently, Jill has just revamped her look - downsizing her 32G chest to a D-cup, from what she previously considered a “curse”.

Ramona Singer, 52 – “I’m proud of being a sexy mom.”
A jewelry-line owner, Ramona Singer, travels across the country for the summer with her tennis player husband Mario, who competed on the USTA circuit. Ramona has settled back into her busy Manhattan life packed with social obligations and running after 13-year-old daughter Avery, who is often mortified by her mother’s preference for short skirts and over-the-top behaviour.

Always the fiery one, life with Ramona is never dull, as she continues to keep everyone in check with her "tell-it-like-it-is” attitude. Indeed so, as Ramona flirts with her tennis coach and also not-so-playfully pushed a girlfriend (along with her pet dog) into the pool.

Expect a full visual extravaganza as the camera intimately follows these ladies’ personal and professional lives in this hit reality series, where spending figures can easily leap from $30,000 for an au pair to $9.5million for an Upper East Side town house. These fabulous-looking housewives, though not the run-of-the-mill housewives as we know, offer a mind-boggling insight into the lives of the rich and privileged; as well as spectacles of a whole different sort as these social-climbing ladies display their dirty laundry and private, potentially embarrassing moments in exchange for screen time. The vixen claws are unleashed in upcoming episodes as Jill is left out of Ramona’s cooking party, but not LuAnn. The crossfire intensifies as Jill invites LuAnn to be her doubles partner in her big tennis match against Ramona. Meow.

So tune in to The Real Housewives of New York City and get your glimpse of what really goes on behind the veneers of glamour and social politics in the lives of the rich and famous, first and exclusively on Sony Entertainment Television this June!

The Real Housewives of New York City premieres Friday, 5 June 2009
First & Exclusively on Sony Entertainment Television (SET) @ 9pm

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