It won’t be long now, Bravoholics.
We are just hours away from the return of one of the greatest shows of our lifetime, The Real Housewives of New York City. And the excitement is at a near fever pitch.
After 10 glorious seasons of pure leg-tossing absurdity, we’ve come to expect a certain level of entertainment from Bravo’s Big Apple beauties and they have never, ever left us feeling disappointed. Between the over-the-top lewks, the unparalleled wit, and the willingness to bicker over just about anything, the stars of RHONY both past and present have delivered the goods time and time again. And heading into season 11, there’s no reason to expect the current line-up—consisting of Bethenny Frankel, Luann de Lesseps, Ramona Singer, Sonja Morgan, Dorinda Medley and Tinsley Mortimer—will fail us now. After all, have you seen that trailer?!
While one of season 10’s biggest stories—the prolonged break-up between one-time BFFs Bethenny and Carole Radziwill—won’t be in play since Carole has departed the series, we’ve got the red-hot feud between Luann and Dorinda primed and ready to take its place as the star attraction. After all, you can’t just heckle someone at their cabaret debut and expect things to be hunky-dory afterwards.
But while we wait to see what fresh delights the Bravo gods have in store for us this season, let’s take a trip down memory lane and relive all of RHONY‘s best and biggest blowouts over the years. We promise, we made it nice!
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Kelly Bensimon vs. Bethenny Frankel, Season 2
When Kelly Bensimon was added into the mix for season two, she and Bethenny Frankel were not fast friends. And after tension at the Jill Stuart show during New York Fashion Week led to the two women to meet to hash out their differences, it was clear that they would never be friends at all. Not when Kelly delivered the withering and now-infamous takedown that left the usually-verbose Bethenny nearly speechless. “Listen, I just want to make one thing clear,” Kelly began immediately upon sitting down. “We’re not friends.”
And then the unforgettable “This is you, this is me” came, complete with accompanying hand gestures to make clear who Kelly thought was on top in the situation. And she didn’t stop there. “I don’t like you. I don’t think you’re funny. I don’t think you’re charming,” she continued, really hammering her point. “We are not friends. We will never be friends.” Correct.
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Bethenny Frankel vs. Kelly Bensimon, Season 3
Ah, Scary Island. A year after Kelly made it perfectly clear that she would never be Bethenny’s friend, the two wound up on the same trip to the Virgin Islands. And while there without her pals Jill Zarin and Luann de Lesseps present, Kelly absolutely unraveled in one of the most uncomfortable (yet secretly thrilling) moments on reality TV history. She berated Bethenny for calling herself a chef, said she felt like her enemy was trying to kill her every night, said she thought Alex McCord was a vampire—it was a lot. And before Sonja Morgan could diffuse the situation, Bethenny lost her cool and shouted the now infamous, “Go to sleep! Go to sleep!”
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Jill Zarin vs. Bethenny Frankel, Season 3
Of course, Scary Island aside, much of season three was dominated by the compete dissolution of Bethenny and Jill’s relationship. After two seasons of these women becoming something of RHONY‘s Lucy and Ethel, we watched in real-time as a real friendship fell all the way apart. Both felt slighted over things that had gone down between seasons and hadn’t spoken in months, though the fight behind the fight seemed to lie with Jill feeling bitter over the fact that Bethenny’s star had begun to grow a bit brighter than Jill’s. Either way, it was landmark moment in the show’s history as we all watched this one fan-favorite friendship break past the point of no return. By the reunion, it was clear that there would be no going back for these two.
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Alex McCord vs. Jill Zarin, Season 3
Oh, Alex. Like much of her time on the show, it’s hard to remember exactly why she was so angry at Jill in season three. Did it have something to go with the comments made about her children? Maybe. Was it a side effect of her being Team Bethenny? Probably. But what we’ll never, ever forget is the iconic line, “You are in high school. You are a mean girl, and you are in high school. And while you’re in high school, I am in Brooklyn.” Whatever that means.
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Jill Zarin vs. Ramona Singer, Season 4
Bethenny may have been gone in season four, but the fallout from her bitter feud with Jill lingered on. And when the ladies traveled to Morocco, Jill and Ramona finally hash out what happened when the former arrived on Scary Island unannounced and the latter kicked her out to spare B’s feelings. Jill wanted Ramona to swear that if it happened all over again, she, as the host, would’ve handled it differently. Ramona couldn’t do that. Jill thought Ramona should’ve helped her mend fences with Bethenny. Ramona didn’t think she owed Jill anything. Jill stormed out, swearing she was done. And Ramona was left, delivering one hell of a heaving sob on the bed.
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Alex McCord vs. Luann de Lesseps, Season 4
In the aftermath of Jill and Ramona’s showdown at the riad in Morocco, Alex decided she ought to step up and defend her friend Ramona, so she stomped into a room where Jill, Luann, Kelly, and one-season-wonder Cindy Barshop were having henna tattoos applied. The women thoroughly shut Alex down, and after they returned home, Luann (the trip’s host) sought Alex out for a sit-down to express her feelings over the moment. And what transpired was one of RHONY’s most quotable exchanges. After Luann criticized Alex for storming in wearing her “Herman Munster shoes,” Alex retorted, “Um, they’re Louis Vuitton shoes.” Lu’s response? “Well, even Louis Vuitton makes mistakes.” Are we the only ones who chef’s kiss the sky every time we remember that bit of perfection?
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Aviva Drescher vs. Ramona Singer and Sonja Morgan, Season 5
Season five’s girl’s trip to St. Barts soured right quick when newcomer Aviva Drescher arrived with her husband Reid in tow, claiming she needed him to help her overcome her fear of flying. Well, Ramona and Sonja were not interested in spending their time with anyone’s husband. And when Aviva caught wind of their issue, she lost it. First, she berated the women for not praising Reid for bringing her to the trip, then she slut-shamed Sonja for picking up guys, and then told them both they’re “white trash, quite frankly.” Watching the two women try to figure out what, exactly, she meant by “white trash” was just priceless.
Bravo
Ramona Singer vs. Kristen Taekman, Season 6
Ramona never quite warmed to season six newbie Kristen Taekman, not after she dared get the Singer Stinger’s hair wet while in the Hamptons. But when the women traveled to the Berkshires an episode later, she truly crossed the line when she lobbed a wine glass—and not just the wine held within—at Kristen while the ladies were out canoeing. Blood and battle lines were drawn.
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Aviva Drescher vs. Everyone, Season 6
By the end of Aviva’s second and final season on RHONY, she pretty much had no allies left. She’d spent the season accusing Carole Radziwill of using a ghost writer, deploying some questionable excuses to get out of a group trip to Montana, and enraging Luann for passing a lewd text message about her own father and his sexual conquests around at one of her luncheons. So, when the ladies gathered for one last group event at Le Cirque in the season finale, Aviva maybe knew she didn’t have a leg to stand on with the group—so she threw it. Yes, that’s right. In one of the most unforgettable moments in Real Housewives franchise history, the embattled star removed her prosthetic leg, slammed it down on the table as proof of the only thing that’s artificial about her, and then threw it across the room. “Go ahead, take it, Heather,” she shouted as she tossed it. “I’ll crawl home.”
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Luann de Lesseps vs. Heather Thomson, Season 7
When the ladies traveled to Turks and Caicos in season seven, a night of fun for singles Luann, Ramona, and Sonja turns into a wild morning as Heather Thomson finds a naked man in one of the rooms and loses her cool. As she asks whether Luann would react if she woke up and a found a strange man sleeping naked in the bed next to her, Luann, clad in her robe and sunglasses, scoffs, “Not really.” And then, after Heather said they must have different morals and ethics, it happened—Lu’s now-iconic retort. “Be cool,” she implored her co-star. “Don’t be all, like, uncool. Why?”
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Bethenny Frankel vs. Luann DeLesseps, Season 8
When the ladies go to the Berkshires, you know things are going to go berserk-shires. In this season eight trip to Dorinda’s home away from home, Bethenny and Luann got into one of their most brutal arguments ever. After Luann implied, not for the first time, that she helped B come up with Skinnygirl, Bethenny lost it, calling Luann a hypocrite, a slut, a whore, you name it. The entire thing was so intense that it played out over three episodes of the season, included footage of Lu sending B an apology text while they were under the same roof (only for Bethenny to then come upon her continuing to discuss the fight with other women), and led to Dorinda’s now-infamous cries about making it nice. One for the record books.
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Bethenny Frankel vs. Sonja Morgan, Season 8
By the time Bethenny had returned in season seven, the subject of Sonja’s partying ways had become something of a concerning subject for the rest of the cast. But when, in season eight, Sonja attached herself to a new business that sounds awfully similar to B’s SkinnyGirl empire, s–t really hit the fan. And so, when Sonja stopped by B’s offices to discuss business with her friend and “mentor,” she was in for a rude awakening as Bethenny laid her out flat, telling her she thought the Tipsy Girl scheme was a ripoff and she wanted nothing more to do with her. By the end, Sonja was fleeing in tears. It. Was. Rough.
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Dorinda Medley vs. Sonja Morgan, Season 10
After a few years of friction between Sonja and Dorinda Medley, which saw the latter withhold invitations to her annual Berkshires s–tshow around the holidays, it seemed as though season 10 might be a season of renewed friendship for these two. Until the season premiere that is. During a brunch in the Hamptons, Dorinda hit her limit with the way in which Sonja lives in the past, always blaming things on her divorce. And when Sonja dared compare said divorce to the pain of Dorinda’s husband dying, well, it was over. Clip!
Bravo
Bethenny Frankel vs. Carole Radziwill, Season 10
In a bit of deja vu, fans got to watch as Bethenny weathered another season-long friend break-up, this time with Cool Carole. Much like the debacle with Jill in season three, these two had become a fan-favorite pairing until real life got in the way and hurt feelings festered into bitter, bitter arguments. What was the whole thing really about? Surely it couldn’t all have been about Carole’s boyfriend Adam wanting payment to travel on one of Bethenny’s relief aid missions as the photographer. Was B jealous that Carole had gotten chummy with Tinsley Mortimer? Was Carole just not that into B? Whatever the case, by the reunion it was clear that this earth was fully scorched and there would be no going back.
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Dorinda Medley vs. Luann DeLesseps, Season 10
Despite Dorinda being there for Luann after her arrest in season 10, a night in Cartagena, Colombia and perhaps one too many margaritas prompted a massive blowout between the once-tight pals. Dorinda felt as if the newly-sober Luann was acting just a touch too high and mighty, while Luann just wanted to make sure that a drunken Dorinda didn’t get too nasty with her. But nasty Dorinda got. And by the time they returned back to the Big Apple, Dorinda was still feeling some type of way, going so far as to heckle Lu during her cabaret show over the dresses she helped the songbird procure for her big debut. Say it with us now: Jovani!
The Real Housewives of New York City returns on Wednesday, March 6 at 9 p.m. on Bravo.
(E! and Bravo are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)