‘The Countess’ Luann de Lesseps Wants Her Own Dating Show
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On Thursday, OG Bravo fans finally got to tune in to the premiere of the highly anticipated The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: RHONY Legacy, reuniting original cast members from The Real Housewives of New York City on camera for the first time in years.
Luann de Lesseps, Sonja Morgan, Dorinda Medley, Kristen Taekman, Ramona Singer, and even Kelly Bensimon spent one week filming together in St. Barths, returning to the same house they stayed at on Saline Beach during their infamous trip in Season Five of RHONY. It’s been more than a decade since that trip, which is widely referred to as the Scary Island vacation, aired on TV. A lot has changed for the original cast of RHONY, who were replaced by a brand new group of women this year, and a lot hasn’t.
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Getting these six women together in a concentrated space for a limited time wasn’t a simple feat. Reflecting on their week together, de Lesseps, a.k.a. the Countess, tells Rolling Stone that it was exciting and fun to reunite with these women, with whom she has endless history.
“There’s always drama when you put six women together, but I feel like it’s good. We pull back that fourth wall and you get to talk about things that happened in the past that you never get to hear about on the show. It’s, like, Scary Island part two,” de Lesseps tells Rolling Stone. “We got Kelly back, and I think you get to hear Kelly speak about that whole thing that happened to her. There might be a pirate or two involved. Kristen Taekman had her issues with her husband; Sonja is back at it with me and Dorinda and Ramona. We’re like sisters at this point, so it felt really good to have a fun week in St. Barths.”
De Lesseps is no stranger to reality TV. After appearing on RHONY from its 2008 inception until 2021, she also went on to star in Luann and Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake as well as the first season of Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip. While she’s filmed for years, de Lesseps says working alongside her original cast mates is special and comfortable given the amount of time they’ve already spent together. According to the Countess, these women feel more like family.
“It’s that depth and the history that we’ve had from all the trips we’ve taken together and all the lines that came out of our mouths. It was a very bonding experience for all of us because we hadn’t filmed [together] in years, so it felt like a reunion of sorts. We don’t have to come up with a storyline, it wasn’t about that. It was about our relationships. There’s a lot of depth there because we are really true friends from years ago,” de Lesseps says.
“I did the first Ultimate Girls Trip when we went to Turks and Caicos, and it was different because it’s kind of a ‘get to know you’ period with that kind of franchise. I didn’t really know [that cast at first]. But I know Ramona, Sonja, Dorinda, and Kelly. It’s just a different vibe. With the OGs of New York, it’s like the family getting together.”
Back in November, Singer came under fire following a report in Vanity Fair that alleged she used the N-word on set and that she made other racially insensitive comments to crew members working behind the scenes of the show. After the report was published, Singer was disinvited from BravoCon and the network has seemingly distanced themselves from the longtime RHONY star even though she will still appear front and center in The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: RHONY Legacy.
When asked if she’s spoken to Singer since the article came out and what she thought about the incident, de Lesseps says, “I reached out and told her I was thinking of her, of course. I mean, it’s unfortunate but it certainly doesn’t align with how I believe or how I think.”
While Singer was booted from BravoCon, de Lesseps was in attendance at the fan convention in Las Vegas. For her, it was “a beautiful thing” to see fans up close and personal who are so invested in the Bravo universe and it was also fun for her to catch up with other reality stars like Below Deck’s Captain Lee, Vanderpump Rules’ James Kennedy (who she says plans to remix more of her music), and other longtime pals. De Lesseps has been a fixture on reality television since she first appeared in the first season of Real Housewives of New York. It’s a humbling experience, she says, to be a part of something that viewers and fans gravitate toward as a means of escape.
“I think it’s great that people can get lost from their life and get into our lives. It’s a great escape,” she says. “I’ve had mothers and daughters come up to me saying, ‘This bonded us,’ and people who have said, ‘I grew up watching you, you taught me manners, you got me through cancer, you got me through a divorce.’ I hear all of these things at my shows, too. This is why I continue to spread that joy. I think it’s great that people have a place to escape and they want to escape with us.”
Bravo shook things up with the long-standing RHONY franchise this year when they recast the whole show. The rebooted series was well-received by fans and critics who enjoyed watching a new group of women with fresh perspectives — and different drama — represent New York City on the network. De Lesseps says she watched some of the new iteration of RHONY but didn’t finish the series.
“I certainly watched to get to know them a little bit and I think they’re great. Listen, they’re different women, of course. They’re not us, but I feel like they’re all interesting in their own right and they’re new. I think it’s ‘get to know you time’ and I think the cast did well,” de Lesseps says, adding that she also watches Real Housewives of Beverly Hills because of her friendships with Kyle Richards, Lisa Rinna, and Sutton Stracke as well as Real Housewives of Miami in support of her friends Marysol Patton and Alexia Nepola.
I always say you have to be yourself because the camera doesn’t lie. I feel like that’s the only way to roll — to be your best possible self because a lot of people are watching.
As far as any advice de Lesseps has for the new RHONY cast members or any newbie on reality TV, she says the most important thing is to be true to who you are, especially considering “the camera doesn’t lie.”
“I always say you have to be yourself because the camera doesn’t lie. I feel like that’s the only way to roll — to be your best possible self because a lot of people are watching,” de Lesseps says. “For me, I have my moments, but for the most part we produce the show because it’s our story, it’s our life, and so I think it’s important to be as inspirational as you can.”
While de Lesseps is a Bravo veteran and continues to work nonstop in the reality television space, the Countess also has her hands in a number of different projects. Not only is she starring on the new season of Ultimate Girls Trip but she also hopes to film another season of Welcome to Crappie Lake with her friend and on-camera OG collaborator Sonja Morgan, and she’s set to appear on RuPaul’s Drag Race later this month. Following in the footsteps of Vanderpump Rules’ Scheana Shay, Ariana Madix, and Lala Kent who appeared in an Uber Eats commercial earlier this year remixing Scheana’s “Good As Gold,” de Lesseps also recently starred in her own Uber Eats commercial performing a remix of her iconic single, “Money Can’t Buy You Class.”
Not to mention: De Lesseps says she has a new song coming out in the next few weeks as she continues to perform her cabaret show, with upcoming tour dates in Canada and New York City. The cabaret will evolve, taking on a new theme when she launches “Marry, F, Kill,” at The Wiltern in Los Angeles on Feb. 16. De Lesseps says she’ll arrange her show around personal stories and experiences and she’ll continue to pick her own music, as she always does, but what’s going to make this show “totally different” are what she describes as sexier and naughtier themes.
“My inspiration really came from the audience. When I do a Q&A portion of my show I always get asked the question, ‘Who would you marry, F, and kill?’ so it really came from the fans. It dawned on me: That’s the name of my next tour,” de Lesseps explains.
“‘Money Can’t Buy You Class’ was written that way, and I’m not going to tell you who I’m talking about when I say money can’t buy you class because that was the very beginning of [my time on] Real Housewives, and the same with ‘Chic C’est La Vie’ and ‘Feelin’ Jovani.’ I love the creative parts of doing the show and coming up with music based on my personal experiences. I’m having so much fun working on this one because it’s about who’d we’d marry, who we want to F, and then who would we like to kill at the end of the day.”
Cabarets also hold a special place in de Lesseps’ heart in terms of her artistic expression. Years ago, a friend said it seemed like a good fit for her since she loves to tell stories, sing, dance, and entertain. In 2018, she wrote and starred in her first cabaret, Countess and Friends, and has been perfecting her act ever since.
“Cabaret is very personal to me. It’s something that I really love and people can feel that, and it’s an immersive experience. My fans are actually a part of the show, ” she says. “I put on a great show and I worked really hard at it. I have a director who’s amazing, Richard J. Alexander, and my musical director Brian Nash is incredible. There’s no other experience out there like it. When I started Countess and Friends it was kind of a variety show because I love Carol Burnett and I grew up on that. Then it morphed into Countess Cabaret and I didn’t realize that was really a void in this area. I did it out of my own love affair with music because I love writing. I’ve written most if not all of my songs, and this is my passion.”
On top of everything else she has going on, de Lesseps also proposed the idea about wanting to star in some kind of reality dating show.
“Wouldn’t it be interesting to see someone charm the socks off of the Countess?” she says. “[I’d say things like], ‘Did you not open the door for me?’ ‘Why did you order that?’ ‘What is that shirt you have?’ It would certainly beat dating online.”
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