In a plot twist worthy of reality TV, the “Real Housewives” star accused of assaulting her former boyfriend said yesterday that he was the one who started it.
Kelly Bensimon went on the offensive following a pretrial hearing in Manhattan court, saying her 30-year-old former beau shoved her after refusing to leave her SoHo apartment.
Bensimon stars on the Bravo show “Real Housewives of New York City,” where she has earned a reputation as a hissing, claws-out socialite.
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As for butt-kicking her boyfriend and giving him a black eye, the mother of two is claiming to be the real victim.
“The guy wouldn’t leave her apartment,” Bensimon’s lawyer, Edward Hayes, said. “He pushed and shoved her, then he calls the police.
“You’re entitled to push him out of your apartment [if he doesn’t voluntarily leave].”
In court, the 6-foot-tall, 40-year-old former model and one-time marathon runner — dressed all in black — sat quietly as her lawyer argued on her behalf.
Her ex-boyfriend, Nick Stefanov, who claims she clocked him and gave him a black eye, was not in the courtroom.
His lawyer could not be reached for comment.
Bensimon, who is never at a loss for words on the show, had little to say after the hearing.
“I’m really devastated that my girls and I have to go through something like this,” Bensimon said of her 8- and 10-year-old daughters. “They don’t need to be exposed to things like this.”
Hayes said Stefanov has been sending vicious e-mails to Bensimon since the incident, threatening to publicly embarrass her.
“This is the reverse of a jilted girlfriend,” Hayes said. “He’s a rejected boyfriend.”
According to court papers, Stefanov fled her apartment on Centre Street after the beating and reported the March 3 incident to cops at the Fifth Precinct station house.
Bensimon surrendered two days later and was charged with misdemeanor third-degree assault.
Bensimon ran the New York City Marathon in 2007, wrote a book on bikinis and was a columnist for Page Six Magazine.
She also modeled for magazines such as Elle, Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan and Harper’s Bazaar.