Bethenny Frankel's decision to wear a see-through dress to the Apollo's 75th anniversary gala on Monday night? Another publicity stunt, clearly. But you've got to give it to her for doing whatever it takes to stir up some media attention. An ass cheek one week, a boob the next: no body part shall go unexploited. [HuffPo via NYM]
• Despite what you may have read in the tabloids the past few weeks, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are not splitting up and remain truly, deeply, madly in love. So if you've spent sleepless nights worrying about that, hopefully Jolie's publicist's soothing words will finally put your mind at ease. [Us]
• Speaking of Angie, Forbes has named her the most powerful celebrity on the planet, so she's got that going for her, which is nice. [Forbes]
• And speaking of Brad, you may be interested to know what his "secret" is to avoiding odors when he's on the set of a movie and doesn't have time to shower: baby wipes, apparently. It's also a slow news day, apparently. [NYDN]
• Christina Ricci and Owen Benjamin have called off their engagement. [Us]
Bethenny Frankel has been doing her best to remain in the spotlight as she continues her quest to get people to buy her diet book, which we haven't read, of course, but sounds like a recipe for certain death considering it suggests eating less than 1,000 calories a day and never eating more than three bites of any one dish. Last week, she drummed up some attention by classily lifting up her dress for the cameras at a book party. She's hit up half a dozen events this week, stopping off at IFC's "America's Hottest Rocker Mom Contest" today (fitting since while she isn't a mom, she isn't a housewife either), and, last night, a party for Frangelico at STK. New York caught up with her at yesterday's party and asked her to recount a "scandalous story about herself from back in the day," a request she was happy to comply with, especially since those Jersey girls have kind of upped the ante with their tales of coke-snorting and stripping in recent days:
Kelly Bensimon's a glutton for punishment, thespian Whitney Port's nuanced acting critiques, two babies, two 90s stars, a Clinton house (hunting) party, and some Communist dick is always just some Communist dick: presenting your Sunday morning gossip roundup.
PETA, anti-fur jihadists, have finally acquiesced to Bethenny Frankel's constant pleas and are allowing the Housewife of New York to expose her dilapidated inventory to the public in an effort to stop fur-wearing. Bad move!
• Olivia Palermo's imaginary career is on fire. The City star is reportedly leaving her "job" at DVF to "work" in the publicity department at Elle. So if you see anything in Elle that seems to have been ripped from another magazine, now you know who to blame. [P6]
• Jay-Z demanded a Maybach, champagne, "good quality" peanut butter and jelly, 12 shot glasses, and a pack of Marlboros—along with $750,000—before agreeing to perform at the University of Arizona last month. [SG, P6]
• Jesus Luz's dad says his son and Madonna "definitely" plan to tie the knot in a Kabbalah ceremony shortly. But Jesus won't have to bother signing a prenup since the marriage won't be legally binding. [NYDN]
• The good news for Amy Winehouse: She's reportedly no longer addicted to drugs. The bad: She's supposedly traded the drugs for booze. [OK!]
• Man of the people: Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was spotted flying coach on a flight from New York to DC. [P6]
Rihanna shopping in Soho, and later standing under an umbrella outside Bar 89 on Mercer Street ... Chloe Sevigny carrying a bunch of shopping bags downtown ... Kate Bosworth walking with James Rousseau on the Lower East Side ... Venus Williams getting in a taxi outside of Whole Foods ... Chace Crawford hanging out on the set of Twelve with Emma Roberts ... Chanel Iman talking on her cell phone ... Kim Kardashian walking into the Gramercy Park Hotel ... Bethenny Frankel heading into a book signing at the Time Warner Center ... Jessica Biel walking downtown ... and Victoria Beckham going shopping in Chelsea.
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.
• It looks like Bethenny Frankel will be staying single a little while longer. A day after she and A-Rod were spotted on a "date" at a steakhouse in Florida, the Yankee was seen "canoodling" with a "trashy blond girl" at the Delano. Oh, well. [NYDN]
• It's official: Heidi Klum is with child. [Us]
• Good news for Jesus Luz: Not only is he back together with Madonna, he's booked Dolce & Gabbana's next campaign, too. [WWD]
• Estée Lauder CEO William Lauder says he's not paying his baby mama Taylor Stein the $500k a year she was promised because she violated their confidentiality agreement. Her lawyer says it was actually William's wife Karen who leaked word of the baby to the press. [NYP]
• Madonna's most recent effort to change hearts and minds in Malawi: She pleaded her case in a letter to the country's Nation newspaper, writing that she wants to provide Mercy "with a home, a loving family environment and the best education and health care possible." [Us, NYP]
• Madonna may want to take a cue from Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt: The couple had their adoption request turned down by Bhutan recently, but they're now moving on to the Philippines, according to Britain's Daily Mail. [NYDN]
• Kipton Cronkite's life appears to be headed downhill: The art world scenester has lost his job and apartment, and he's living rent-free with a rich teenager on the Lower East Side. [P6]
• Ruth Madoff will have to find a new stylist: She's been banned from the Pierre Michel Salon "out of respect for the salon's other customers." [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan's mental condition isn't improving: Friends now say she "barely sleeps" anymore, and she "can't even sit down for a minute without pacing around the room." [People]
• It looks like mischief runs in the family. Martha's daughter Alexis has been forced to pay $990,000 in back taxes and a $110,000 fine to the IRS, although she's blaming her accountant for the "mix-up." [NYP]
• Casey Greenfield gave birth to a baby boy the other day, but she still isn't saying who the father might be. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan got a "post-breakup makeover" consisting of a new hair color and a new tattoo, in case you're keeping track. [People, NYP]
• Jennifer Lopez has so many wigs, she has an entire room devoted to them. Or so says Star magazine. [Star]
• Whoops! Jeremy Piven was seen eating a mercury-laden plate of tuna tartare and calamari salad last weekend, although his publicist is now denying the account. [MSNBC]
• "Insiders" say that Ivana Trump and Rossano Rubicondi did not, in fact, marry because they were hopelessly in love, but because it was all part of a deal to stir up some publicity and the two even had a contract drawn up. Our faith in romance has been crushed! [NYDN]
• How did the press know Chris Brown was in Miami with Rihanna last weekend? He told them so, silly. In related news, Rihanna is reportedly refusing to testify against him (even though prosecutors plan to move forward). And Brown is scheduled to be arraigned today, although it's unclear if he'll make a courthouse appearance. [P6, NYP, People]
• Jeff Toobin changed his Facebook status to "Married" yesterday. That'll clear everything up! [P6]
• After a handful of false alarms (and after claiming they were weren't even engaged) Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen finally got married yesterday, tying the knot in a small ceremony at a Catholic church in Santa Monica. [Us, People]
• It looks like Jeremy Piven won't be penalized for walking away from Speed-the-Plow, since officials from Actors' Equity and the Broadway League couldn't come to a consensus at his hearing yesterday. [NYT, NYP]
• Russell Simmons has agreed to pay Kimora $40,000 a month in child support until their daughters turn 19. [People]
• Derek Jeter is supposedly dating a 22-year-old FIT student. Given she enjoys playing his voicemails for her group of friends, you probably shouldn't expect the relationship to last very long. [NYDN]
• Hope you're sitting down for this one. Donald Trump Jr. and his wife Vanessa had a baby yesterday. It was a boy. And he will now bear a burden for the rest of his life: His parents named him Donald J. Trump III. [People]
• Lindsay Lohan is launching a self-tanning line called Stay Gold. Finally! [NYDN]
• "Real Housewife" Bethenny Frankel was spotted using coupons at a hair salon. [P6]
• After dating for about half a century, Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart may finally be ready to get hitched. [Cindy Adams]
• Please note that Walter Cronkite is not related to social/art scenester Kipton Cronkite, despite his claims to the contrary. [P6]
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.
• It isn't easy being a disposable reality TV star. At the Jill Stuart show on Monday, a publicist barked "Show your fucking ring!" to Bethenny Frankel as The Real Housewives of New York star was getting her photo taken. She's probably used to the abuse, though. Frankel later told a reporter that she used to babysit Paris and Nicky Hilton when they were kids. [AMNY, NYO]
• Lindsay Lohan says her dramatic weight loss is simply the result on "working a lot." Of course it is. [Us]
• Monogamy is so old-fashioned: Alex Rodriguez spent Valentine's Day weekend romancing five different women, while Calvin Klein was spotted in Miami with "two model-type guys." [P6]
• Walter and Monica Noel are laying low at their home in Mustique, although they skipped the private jet and flew commercial to get there. [P6]
Dylan Lauren celebrated the re-launch of Dylan's Candy Bar on Monday night with a bash at her Third Avenue store. In addition to siblings Andrew and David and mom Ricky, guests included Woody Allen and Soon-Yi (with their kids), Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and wife Vanessa Trump, Lauren Bush, Dan Abrams, Olivia Palermo, Katie Lee Joel, Rachel Roy, Fabiola Beracasa, Stacey Bendet, Eric Villency, Jamee Gregory, Bettina Zilkha, Amy Sacco, Thom Filicia, Dori Cooperman, Ingrid Sischy, Dave Zinczenko, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Karen Duffy, Kira Plastinina, Jason Biggs, Tyson Beckford, and fraudster Tatiana Boncompagni. [PMc, NYO, Wireimage, GoaG]
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!
