Real Housewives’ Kelly Tells Her Side of the Story

On last night’s Real Housewives of New York (and the previous week’s episode), Housewife Kelly Bensimon had a seemingly scary meltdown. After a relatively calm season, Kelly flipped, spectacularly, to the point that the other women on Ramona’s getaway started speaking in front of her as if she weren’t there. Kelly told Alex she was “channeling a vampire,” continually instructed everyone to “zip it,” and said to Bethenny that her being on the trip was “creepy.” Even Zen Sonja eventually turned on her. We spoke with Kelly on the phone to get her side of the story. Our lead question: What in the hell was going on with you?

“I was asked to go on this trip and I was very anxious about it, because I was asked by women who don’t like me at all. I always have positive expectations of people, and I always think the best, and you know, that’s my Achilles’ heel, is that I’m positive and feel like people are going to be nice. But the nature of the show isn’t that, we’re not a PC show: We’re not supposed to walk out of a situation that’s confrontation; we’re supposed to react. And when someone’s jabbing you constantly, on and off camera, to be honest with you, I’m a real person, and I don’t take this as a reality-TV star person. I go into situations as Kelly Killoren Bensimon, I’m me, I’m the same person I am on the show with you or any of my friends. And these women get a rise out of me.”

Plus, she was trapped. “I wasn’t able to go get a coffee; I couldn’t go for a run. I was on this small boat and this house, and I was so incredibly confined and I was being hated on, and there was no way for me to get out. Help! Help me!”

Related: Read the recap of last night’s episode.

And she defends her disparagement of feelings. “And people have been asking me about how I kept saying, ‘feelings, 1979’: I say that because the women are so unpredictable that I’m not going to sit there and empathize with feelings when a minute later they’re going to lash out at me about something else. In some ways, I’m almost too real. I have two girls, we talk about feelings 24 hours a day. But those are real-life feelings.”

But after all that, Bensimon doesn’t really regret her actions. “Some people are like, ‘You had a breakdown,’ and I’m like, no, I had a breakthrough. I just let go, I was crying, just, like, stop harassing. Emma’s like, ‘Awwwwww!’ [We are not like, ‘awwwwww.’] I’m completely honest, I have a ton of integrity, and I love doing this show. The minute that I walk into the room, I create a frenetic energy — it’s not kinetic, it’s not, like, a forward motion, it’s just like this stagnant frenetic energy. And let’s be honest, it makes for awesome TV. I mean, haters are part of the ecosystem, and if they’re not hating on you, you’re not doing something right.”

Related: Read the recap of last night’s episode.