NEW YORK (LALATE) – Playboy’s Kelly Bensimon (photos below) says Cindy Barshop changed Housewives, for the better. Kelly Bensimon balanced a Playboy spread, a jewelry line, and life as a single mother. But she tells news this week that the real inspiration is Bethenny Frankel’s replacement, Cindy Barshop.

Frankel left Housewives for Bethenny Getting Married and Bethenny Ever After. But this season’s of Bethenny Ever After has not been happily ever after in the tv ratings.

Kelly Bensimon Pictures
Kelly Bensimon Photo 1
Kelly Bensimon Photo 2
Kelly Bensimon Photo 3
Kelly Bensimon Photo 4
Kelly Bensimon Photo 5

Now Bensimon and the rest of the Housewives are returning to a new season of New York. Will they find ratings gold once again in contrast to Frankel’s lackluster numbers?

Bensimon tells E! that Barshop has been a great addition to the cast, putting the “brand out of balance”. Bensimon also admits that with two babies and ten Completely Bare spas in New York, Barshop has “set the bar so high” for other Housewives.

But will a high bar for Barshop lead to real ratings for Housewives? That remains to be seen.

• Comments (1)

NEW YORK (LALATE) – Kelly Bensimon says Alex McCord channels the devil with vampire looks. Alex McCord’s vampire devil remarks from Bensimon came on “Scary Island”. Scary Island is the nickname that Bensimon gave to her tropical island she visited with McCord in the final episode of Real Housewives of New York.

While Bethenny Frankel would call Bensimon crazy during the trip, Kelly had her own remarks about McCord and others. And about herself? Bensimon says she didn’t have a breakdown but a breakthrough. Bensimon would later admit she had been drinking during the testimony.

Either way, LALATE contends it’s all brilliant acting by Bensimon. Yes, while many think it was really Bensimon having a actual breakdown, LALATE agrees it was a breathrough performance – a staged, convincing acting achievement of campy tirades that made Bensimon the breakthrough star this season.

McCord tells US Magazine today “I remember the first time that Kelly mentioned that she thought I was channeling the devil. It was in the middle of the soup course! That wasn’t the first time that had happened. Throughout the trip, it just came out of the blue.” (The picture of that US story features McCord with pale white skin and black eyeliner, a look that Bensimon has called vampire like.)

On Friday, Kelly told New York magazine’s Vulture: “Some people are like, ‘You had a breakdown,’ and I’m like, no, I had a breakthrough!”

• Comments (0)

Kelly Bensimon’s faux-yacht breakdown is heating up today bigger than Playboy. Kelly Bensimon’s “breakdown” on that vacation yacht episode this week’s Real Housewives of New York is going much more viral than any Playboy spread this season.

“Breakdown”? “Crazy”? Those are the words heating up net chatter as fans qualify the hideously bizarre and obviously staged behavior in this week on Real Housewives. Jill and Bethenny’s feuding always looks real. But Kelly’s temper moments always looked staged. Why? Because they probably are.

Kelly Bensimon Playboy Pictures
Kelly Bensimon Photo 1
Kelly Bensimon Photo 2
Kelly Bensimon Photo 3
Kelly Bensimon Photo 4
Kelly Bensimon Photo 5

Give any episode this season of Real Housewives and suddenly Kelly looks like she is going into a method acting scene-study on how to create conflict. And whether or not editing is at play here, by the time the scene airs, it appears that Kelly erupts and settles down faster than any volcanic ash explosion in 2010.

It’s always the same way Kelly builds. First Kelly pauses and asks if she heard something right that offended her. When she verifies the remark, suddenly her hands go for that hair, those bang. Next, Kelly will indefinitely pull on her hair from the part-line in the middle, drop her head, let her bangs fall into her face. Her remarks will always be much the same like “I’m not doing this” or “your children.”

Bethenny claims that when Kelly walks off from the yacht lunch she almost walks into the glass doors to get away. Sorry, that appears nowhere in the footage – she just can’t the automatic sliding doors open.

And whether or not editing is to blame, Kelly storms off .. and then returns happy moments later. What the?

Breakdown? Hardly. Highly staged? Probably. So which Housewife’s temper moments seem the most unconvincing? LALATE is going with OC’s Vicki Gunvalson on this one.

• Comments (0)

It’s crazy. Bethenny Frankel calls her “Crazy Kelly”, Kelly Bensimon, and Kelly calls Ramona crazy and situations “crazy” in this current crazy season of Real Housewives of New York.

The word “crazy” gets repeated more often in this season that “The Situation is” got repeated in season one of Jersey Shore.

Someone at Bravo needs to give these women a thesaurus.

In fact, there is nothing crazy about anyone in this season of Housewives. But if you believe that scenes like the one on on the Yacht this week isn’t stage, then … you’re crazy!

When LALATE asked a friend about if that yacht scene is crazy – in which Kelly suddenly erupts into terror, storms off, and then comes back happy -  the reaction was “of course, but who cares.”

Kelly Bensimon Playboy Pictures
Kelly Bensimon Photo 1
Kelly Bensimon Photo 2
Kelly Bensimon Photo 3
Kelly Bensimon Photo 4
Kelly Bensimon Photo 5

Real Housewives, all of them, have always “by accident” had the same type of scenes. It starts with an invite for lunch, dinner, drinks, to discuss something friendly. And in the case of the yacht scene this week, the plates aren’t EVEN ON TABLE until Kelly erupts. “I can’t believe you said that”. “You’re crazy”.

Is Kelly as a good an actress as she is a model? The Kelly Bensimon “conflict scenes” always feature Kelly grabbing her hair locks, one hand on the left, on the right, separating the hair, then letting it fall into her face. As soon as Kelly’s “conflict” starts, do you notice how her hair is suddenly in her face?

Bethenny Frankel, who called Bensimon a “Klemanity” last season, has her own way of getting into “conflict” with Kelly – Frankel just stares. It’s deer in headlights when Frankel and Kelly go at it – Kelly is pulling at that hair that which is starting to go out wild in all directions and Frankel looks like she has just turned to stone seeing Medusa erupt.

It’s a great bit. It’s predictable. It’s there every episode. But is it staged? Who cares – it’s downright enjoyable.

• Comments (0)

PHOTOS! Here again are those great Tara Reid Playboy pics from 2009. Tara Reid’s Playboy pictures heat up again today on news that her engagement is off.

Went want wrong, Tara?

Earlier this year, LALATE wrote about the reactions readers had between the Kelly Bensimon versus Tara Reid Playboy spreads. Now months later, Bensimon’s pics never truly caught on like Tara’s pics.

Tara Reid Pictures
Tara Reid Photo 1
Tara Reid Photo 2
Tara Reid Photo 3
Tara Reid Photo 4
Tara Reid Photo 5
Tara Reid Photo 6
Tara Reid Photo 7
Tara Reid Photo 8

In winter 2009, Tara Reid’s picture spread hit the net. Kelly’s photos dropped Spring 2010.

Reid is a former movie star, Bensimon a current reality tv star. So who would cause a bigger net reaction? For Reid, it was the first major spread in a magazine in recent memory. Both Reid and Bensimon have a long history of stunning model shoots.

But then, the noticeable difference. Bensimon is anchored by one of television’s top programs – Real Housewives of New York – while Reid doesn’t have a top movie or film out to drive attention to her issue.

Kelly Bensimon Pictures
Kelly Bensimon Photo 1
Kelly Bensimon Photo 2
Kelly Bensimon Photo 3
Kelly Bensimon Photo 4
Kelly Bensimon Photo 5

Tara explained her reason for the photo shoot. “I got it fixed and now I’m OK and I want people to know I’m OK,” she told New York’s WPIX.

“I’ve had it done for the last five or six years, but people only want to show the old pictures. It’s so unfair. That’s part of the reason why I did Playboy, to show people, ‘Right, look at me. This is how I look now.’ “

Reid suffered stomach scars following a botched 2004 liposuction procedure. Because of that procedure, Tara had said she would never choose to grace the pages of Playboy. Reid had said “I know there are problems with my stomach. There are bumps on it, it’s uneven, but it’s not that bad. My stomach scars are my bottle wounds.”

Tara Reid posed for Playboy photos during a October 7, 2009 picture shoot at private residence in Santa Monica, California.

• Comments (0)