Entertainment

Meet NYC’s new ‘Real Housewives’ set to shake up the show

Sonja Morgan, Bravo TV’s newest Real Housewife of New York City, is not pleased. The willowy divorcée — for 10 years she was married to John Adams Morgan, great-grandson of financier John Pierpont Morgan, and has a 9-year-old daughter — is hunched anxiously over her BlackBerry with a meek assistant by her side.

Bravo honchos have just sent her the pithy script she’ll need to do as a voice-over each week during the show’s opening credits, and her absurd options include “In my world, you’ve got to believe you’re hot to get what you want” and “Sex is my fountain of youth.”

“I’m going to e-mail them right now and tell them these are ridiculous,” she exclaims. “Do they want me to be the laughingstock?”

PHOTOS: MEET THE NEW ‘REAL HOUSEWIVES’

PHOTOS: ‘THE REAL HOUSEWIVES’

While Morgan, a 46-year-old Upper East Sider, feels dramatic, fellow new Housewife Jennifer Gilbert is more composed. “They don’t want subtle,” she reminds her castmate.

If you don’t recognize Gilbert or Morgan, you will soon. They’re the latest sensation

to join the six other NYC housewives — Jill Zarin, Bethenny Frankel, Alex McCord, LuAnn de Lesseps, Ramona Singer and Kelly Bensimon — when their episodes start airing later this month. Now in its third season, “The Real Housewives of New York City,” is drawing more than 2 million viewers each week.

The easygoing Gilbert strikes a definite contrast to Morgan and the other housewives. She’s, well, normal — but she’s also an impressively accomplished career woman. At age 29, the event planner was named an entrepreneur of the year by Ernst & Young for her business, Save the Date, which now counts Fortune 500 companies among its clientele.

Now 41, she lives in TriBeCa and is also happily married, the mother of three young children — including twin boys — and in possession of an enviously flat stomach. When she makes her entrance on the show later this season, she’ll do so as a party planner for Zarin.

With its over-the-top characters and catfights, it’s easy to understand why audiences tune in to shows like “The Real Housewives of New York City,” but harder to comprehend why anyone would want to be on them, what with the public embarrassment and cameras following you around for months on end.

“Reality TV was like ‘I’m on television!’ ” says cast member Bensimon, who joined the show last year and instantly found herself a media target. She says she has no regrets, despite an initially chilly reception from the ladies and being attacked in the press. “Now it’s like ‘I’m on television, and I’m making money!’ ”

But, for the ladies themselves, it’s increasingly about the bottom line. Frankel has a best-selling book and burgeoning natural food brand, Zarin inked a Kodak endorsement deal, and both Zarin and Alex McCord have books out.

“I need to jump-start my career,” Morgan says of her decision to join the cast. “I think the show is a venue for that.”

She’s vague about what that career might be, but the former model calls herself a “lifestyle expert” and hopes that via the show “products will find me.”

Gilbert, who wants to someday start a foundation to provide women with scholarships and entrepreneurial seed money, says she hopes to use the show to draw attention to worthy causes. “Hey, it may be an unlikely vehicle,” she admits, “but if the other women on the shows are selling jewelry, clothing and CDs, why can’t I actually promote helping people and giving back?”

Jennifer Gilbert


THE TYCOON


You’re clearly cast as the “nice” one. Are you as nice as you seem?

“I wouldn’t say nice. I hate that word. I’d say, kind, different, professional. To me, everybody deserves respect, and there’s no judgment, and I really would like to treat everybody like I would like to be treated. [But] in my job, someone has actually said that I make Anna Wintour look like a pussycat, and I took that as a compliment.”

I heard you had a buffet for the “Housewives” crew when they came to shoot you?

“Yes, they came to shoot an interview with me, and I had a food spread. And then when they came to shoot a cocktail party, I gave them wine and cheese. No one can get through these episodes sober, why should they be?”

What made you decide to be on the show?

“I thought that maybe a little normal would be a good thing. I’m very different than the other women, and I was not friends with any of them before. I know this is not typically the show, but maybe, just maybe, they wanted to go in a different direction for one person. I’m not a mean girl, I don’t instigate. They [Bravo] said, ‘You’re funny, and you’re friendly, and people at home will hopefully relate to you.’ ”

Do you ever think you’re insane for doing this?

“Yes. When I’m watching right now, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, you have no control.’ It’s an 800-pound gorilla. They want good television, and you try to stay true to yourself, but you have no idea how it’s going to get edited. So you just throw yourself out there.”

Who were you most scared of going into the show?

“I was most scared of Kelly just because I didn’t understand her, and now she’s one of my best friends, on the show and off, and I adore her.

I was a little afraid of Ramona, and I still am.”

What shocked you about being on the show?

“One, the drama is real. I thought it was staged and scripted. It’s not. They live in a bubble of this show, so it gets so heated so quickly that I’m watching and I’m going like, relax, everyone just take a deep breath, because afterwards when they see it, they’re like, ‘Oh whoops, shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have done that.’ ”

Do you think the New York Real Housewives stand above the Housewives in other locales?

“I just think New York stands above. I’m a New Yorker, and I think this city is amazing. I think the other ones, even though it’s Atlanta and New Jersey, it’s a little more provincial. We live in New York City. The backdrop is just prettier and more fun and more sparkly.”

Sonja Morgan


THE TEMPTRESS


What made you want to do the show?

“I saw all the girls doing so well; they were getting their endorsements and looking more glamorous and beautiful as time went on. I would see how Alex was getting more elegant and stately. I saw LuAnn having a ball and just glowing — and then Ramona, with her Renewal [skin-care products]. I’ve known Ramona for 20 years. She’s not crazy now. She was crazy then; she’s normal now.”

What was Ramona like 20 years ago?

“The things that she would say were just way more off-the-wall, much crazier than now. We all were. It was a different time. The ’80s . . . think Studio 54, the tail end.”

Had you watched the show before you went on?

“Honestly, I did not. I saw snippets, and I was always like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t believe these girls.’ If I had watched the show, I might not do the show. The whole time we were shooting, I never looked at myself on the camera. If you’re going to do this, you pick your poison. It’s reality, so you have to be yourself.”

Several of the ladies aren’t getting along with Bethenny this season. Do you?

“We get along great. We did a trip together to the Virgin Islands . . . She can call me any name she wants; I just laugh it off. I think it’s hilarious. We’re on a show — I don’t know why everybody gets so upset about every label that gets thrown out.”

What’s your relationship with Kelly like?

“I’m very good with Kelly one-on-one. But when Kelly gets around the other housewives and they start making jabs, she freaks out. She loses total control. I don’t know what it is. Is it hormones? Is it mixing something? She says it’s none of the above. I think when Kelly gets picked on, she’s like an animal that’s trapped.”

Do you think Alex feels like she has more to prove because she lives in Brooklyn and isn’t on the scene as much?

“She definitely wants to be on the scene, but I think having a townhouse in Brooklyn is pretty chic. She and Jill are always talking about charity events, [but] charity events do not mean you’re in society. I don’t want to be snarky, but just because you buy a $1,000 ticket to a charity event doesn’t mean you’re in society. Society is very behind-closed-doors, parties where everyone there is heavy-duty powerful.”