June, 2010:

Part 3 is upon us, and I don’t think we necessarily got any clarity. What am I looking forward to? For the first weekend in 2 months we have time at home. Tomorrow night Simon and I are taking the kids to see the Brooklyn Cyclones play (minor league baseball) and can’t wait to spend Father’s Day as a family. No book signings! We’ll be back on the road again shortly, and if you are looking for a Father’s Day book – ours is half written by Simon and gives the Dad’s take on things. Shameless plug over; let’s recap the madness. Ahem, discussion. Actually, no, madness is a better description. Madness with hair extensions, designer shoes, makeup and a confused-looking Andy Cohen.

Kelly thinks we are aggressive and dangerous. I respectfully disagree, but can tell you what I DO think we are – fed up with Kelly calling us that. I have always tried to enjoy spending time with her, to engage her and get her to relax a little. Doesn’t work. She called us unpredictable, and I have to say that with all the contradictions she herself is very unpredictable. It’s one thing to change your mind about something. Everyone gets to change their minds now and then. When you “change your mind” in the same sentence, that gives everyone else whiplash and makes us not trust her.

On to Jill. First, very quickly re the Bethenny situation – it was appropriate of Jill to apologize to Bethenny and nice of Bethenny to allow a hug.

Next, Jill says I hate her, and that she can’t film with me in the future. She’s attempting to play chess with me and with Bravo here, which is typical – she’s done it with Bethenny and with Kelly in the past. There have been a few people recently who have asked me why Jill gets me so upset, and tonight we saw an example. Because Jill was angry with me, when the subject of nude photos and hypocrisy came up, she started shouting that I had “spread eagle pictures in the hallway of my husband’s hotel.” Number 1, that is not true and she knows it. Number 2, she chose her words specifically to cause trouble for Simon, because perhaps someone out there would wonder whether it was true and ask his business associates about it. For the record, my photos were personal ones, not meant for publication, that got out. Jill doesn’t care about who is or isn’t nude – she even has her own vault, as mentioned to Mark Malkin here. In case you don’t want to take the link – here’s her sendoff quote – “She added, “A lot of people have hot videos of themselves that they don’t want published. People who say they don’t or wouldn’t, I don’t know if I believe them.”

This is an example of the way Jill plays. Jill is a mean girl, not a stupid girl, and she knows exactly what she is doing. Every time she goes on the attack against me or anyone else, she says something that she hopes will damage her target’s life or career. It’s really, truly dirty. She attacked our book. She has attacked my husband. She attacked our children. I have never once said a word about her husband, their businesses or her daughter. Not once. Ever. Have I ever been condescending to her? No. I have not. Over three years I have always been the one to be dragged back against my will to make up with someone who is underhanded and downright cruel. She has said we were never friends, but I have tried, on camera, off camera, I have invited her to events, etc. Jill is seeing red because I’m no longer willing to be under her foot like some of the other women, to be silent while she freely leaks stories to the press. On the same day a few weeks ago, Jill wished me well on Facebook while also calling a reporter and screaming at him because he interviewed me without her permission. When I called her out over Amazongate in Boston and posting under the pseudonym Susan Saunders; she denied something she wasn’t accused of (being J. Samples) in order to confuse people. In this same blog post, she went after Bethenny again and please note that her post was written after tonight’s episode, complete with teary hug, was filmed. This is hypocritical, and standard Jill Zarin.

Want some examples? Let’s review. January 2010 – Simon told a reporter who asked that he didn’t know why Jill was at Sundance. Less than a week later, even before season three was on the air, a blind item by the same reporter said Simon and I were off the show. Is her name on this one? No, but the reporter who wrote both is a friend of hers. Previously, an article in New York Magazine contained a comment by Simon that Jill felt was unkind. Shortly thereafter, she attempted to crucify him professionally by making up a story that sounded believable enough to cause him trouble. As she said on season 2 with a snarl, “If you hit me, I’ll hit you back.” If you throw a spitball at her, she aims an AK47 at your entire family and livelihood. I remember when we filmed the skating event with Johnny Weir in CT — Kate Gosselin’s bodyguard wouldn’t let Jill into the bathroom until Kate came out, making her wait. A seething Jill came back and whispered the story in my ear, finishing with “I’m gonna ruin her.” Because she had to hold it for a few minutes?? This is the same Jill that told me not to film with Kelly in season 2. Yes, Bethenny said it too, but it came from Jill first. This is the same Jill that told me not to film with Bethenny in season 3. This is the same Jill who successfully made Teresa from NJ think that Ramona was attacking her one day, when Jacqueline and I could both see Jill was stirring the pot. It’s unfair, it’s nasty and it’s typical.

In St. John, had Jill acknowledged my presence whatsoever, I would have tried to find a way to salvage the situation. She strode in and shouted “Surprise! Hey, Ramona! Surprise!” She walked over to my chair and stood with her back to me. She said I was “butting into her business” and I still don’t know how – by my existence that she didn’t acknowledge? At tonight’s reunion, she said leaving St. John was the worst thing that’s ever happened to her. Worse than cancer? Worse than losing a family member? Really? No. Not really. But typical.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Jill will try every trick in her playbook to get me fired – she would love nothing more than to crush me, Simon and the boys because that’s what she likes to do to people. She’s put down the gauntlet already. As I’ve shown this season, I won’t sit silently anymore, and I hope that her playing dirty doesn’t pay. Watch what happens. Follow me on Twitter and feel free to tweet Andy and Bravo your thoughts about all this. To keep up with what we’re doing in the off season, including appearances on Bethenny’s Getting Married, add us on Facebook. Have a great summer!

Part 2 has come and gone and my head is spinning. That might be because Simon and I got up at 4am yesterday in Washington, DC to drive home to get the chums to school on time. By the way, did you hear there’s a Housewives of DC coming out way in August? Someone’s sneaking up the beltway…well, maybe I’d better stop before I have too much fun with this. We had four signings this weekend in the DC/Baltimore/Philly area and I want to say a huge THANKS to everyone; we were overwhelmed! If you want to see when we’ll be in your area hit up our tour page which has the schedule and a place to order.

Do I think Jill was happy for Bethenny when she got her own show? Yes, actually I do. I also think she was jealous as h-e-double hockey sticks, because she wanted it to be a show for the two of them, like Laverne and Shirley. Yes, she really did tell us to boycott Bethenny. Yes, even recently Jill also called places like the Wendy Williams show to complain about Bethenny getting airtime and not her. She made that call this spring – a couple of months after the season was filmed. That leads me to believe that all this remorse and change of tune is based on the viewers’ reaction, not a real change of heart about the loss of a friendship.

Sonja joined us and the air got lighter…she is a hoot and I’m only sorry we didn’t meet 10 years ago. We got to talking about sex and one-night stands, and for the most part I think we are all on the same page. Whether you’ve known someone for an evening or for a year, the possibility still exists that it might only be one time, and no, a one night stand doesn’t equal unprotected sex – that’s a bad idea all around.

As this hour continued, LuAnn said she was afraid of Bethenny. Perhaps she’s afraid of Bethenny’s straightforward manner and tone of voice, which can be cutting and abrupt. However, is there any difference between things that Bethenny has said, and comments LuAnn has made? Yes, LuAnn is smoother, but I don’t think her tongue is any less barbed than anyone else’s. I would rather be hit in the face with a barbed comment rather than hear smooth condescension any day; to me if it’s upfront it’s not scary.

Onto the (alleged) bullying. I was very disappointed that Kelly chose to diminish a real problem that exists in our schools, and more recently on the internet, in order to deflect criticism of her own behavior. We all wanted to have fun with her in St. John with the best of intentions, but from the very moment we landed at the airport she kept saying contradictory things and getting randomly aggressive. It’s as though she has a threshold of what she considers inappropriate conversation that is different from anyone else in the cast, and once she is uncomfortable she will do anything, rational or not, to stop the conversation. She won’t allow anyone else to speak nor will she let anyone finish a sentence if she doesn’t like what she is hearing. For a while on the trip, we all got more and more frustrated because we were attempting to process what she said and respond to her rationally. Finally we realized that we should stop trying, because it wasn’t rational. We all kept giving Kelly chances and trying to calm her down – for example, the last thing I wanted to do was go on a photo shoot on the beach, but I didn’t want to set her off, so I went. In the end both cast and crew spent most of the trip managing Kelly, which wasn’t a particularly relaxing exercise. I’m just as interested as everyone else to see how part three comes out…and I was there!

Hey Bravo fans – I’m so sorry I’m nearly a week late (don’t even ask about my NJ blogs but I promise they are coming soon!) Wow, can you believe the finale is here? At times it seemed it would go on until Christmas; other times it seemed like we just watched the premiere! In that time Simon and I have released a book and I’m blogging on the run in between book signings. We’ll be in Philly, DC, Baltimore and McLean, VA from the 11-13th; to see where we are headed go to our family website where you can also order the book online or download on Kindle! It’s a great father’s day gift as it’s half written from the dad’s perspective (and if you get it for him it’s a gift for you too – hahahahah!)

I decided not to attend LuAnn’s single release as we were previously double booked at an event thrown by a friend of ours off camera. While we have some great friendships with cast member that are very real, we also are not going to blow off a behind-the-scenes friend just for extra airtime. Watching the party I’m glad we didn’t go; as usual others took the opportunity to make it all about themselves, which I feel took away from LuAnn’s performance.

Ramona and Mario were two absolutely gorgeous and in love peas-in-a-pod that night; beautiful vows and I cracked up watching the doggie drama. If Simon and I decide to renew our vows one of these days, our two cats will not be invited! The Pierre is such a beautiful place and so romantic – if you don’t live in New York be sure to go and have a drink there when you visit. It’s right across the street from where Maxim’s used to be – sadly they’ve now closed in NYC but the original Paris restaurant looks identical to the Madison Avenue one where Simon and I were married 10 years ago.

It was so touching to have a moment with Ramona and Bethenny. Who knew that over a year we’d go from anger to second chances to shared experiences to friendship?!? I truly cherish my relationships with both of them.

Jill is…Jill. Given what she has said in the press up until April of this year (4 months after this was filmed) I really don’t think she is all that concerned about repairing her relationship with Bethenny – her relationship with the public is another story. I’ll give her this; she is a phenomenal spin doctor — watch what happens at the reunion. I wasn’t surprised at all when she walked away from me; it’s typical.

From where I sit in my Brooklyn office in the basement on a wet, rainy Wednesday in June, I do not think that Jill & Bethenny will make up. And really, I wouldn’t mind if they did – I don’t like to see people fighting. However, I don’t see it happening.

This season has been such a wild ride. For myself, I learned that sometimes when you deal with people who just don’t or can’t listen, sometimes you have to hit them over the head with a verbal two-by-four in order to make yourself heard. In reality TV sometimes walking away from unpleasant situations causes people to get the wrong idea – ie that their behavior is acceptable or that you’re afraid to call people on the carpet when they do or say things that are not OK. I usually give people chances until I bleed, but eventually you have to change tactics if what you’ve done before isn’t working. I used to excuse myself. Unfortunately people assumed I was a pushover because of it, so the one thing I’ve learned this season is that if you don’t tell people what you think, they will make assumptions that are almost always wrong. Fasten your seatbelts for the reunion!!