Countdown to the Real Housewives of New York: Countess LuAnn

Apr 022011

From Rags to Riches to Rags…..but at least they are designer rags…That’s the Countess LuAnn de Lesseps of the Real Housewives of New York story. If you think about it, the story is quite amazing.

A Native American from Connecticut, she meets and marries Count de Lesseps while working in Europe. As any wise woman married to money would do, she has two children by him.

countess LuAnn

Unfortunately, the Count decided after 16 years of marriage that the grass was greener elsewhere, and took up with Princess Kemeria of Ethiopia in a very public way. e notified LuAnn by email, and proceeded to have a very public affair. Season 2 had just wrapped up filming when the story broke.

Through it all, LuAnn managed to maintain her dignity in public, even answering Andy Cohen’s questions about it on the reunion episode.

the count and the princess

By Season 3 , you could see the toll all this took on LuAnn. She lost some of her beauty, along with her Upper East Side townhouse. She and the children were living in the Hamptons, and it seems she couldn’t afford a place to stay in the city, sometimes staying with Jill Zarin and Sonja Morgan during filming.

Luann will be a true “Watch What Happens” during Season 4. Will she pull back from Jill Zarin, as she was doing at the Season 3 reunion? What flavor will she add during Season 4?

COUNT DE LESSEPS AND PRINCESS KEMERIA

Ethiopian Princess Kemeria Abajobir Abajifar,

ELEGANCE AND SINGING ARE LEARNED