Atwood

Curious what you think he is given immunity for? If he wasn't involved in anything illegal he wouldn't need it. I know Tamra is obnoxious, but that doesn't mean Ryan isn't being shady. At the very least he appears to have been involved in money laundering. And if he brought Jenn along on trips where he was helping launder money, that's a black mark on both of them.

I'm definitely biased. But they both agree that he sent her a promissory note within a couple of days of him transferring the money to her so it was obvious to her at least two years ago that it wasn't intended as a loan on his end. At that point a reasonable person who had expected it to be a gift would have a frank conversation about whether it was a gift or a loan and either way get it affirmed in writing. If there wasn't an agreement I would think any reasonably normal person would return the money and get a loan elsewhere to cover current liquidity issues. A normal reaction is not to decide for yourself that what another person gave as a loan is now a gift because you want it to be. Shannon herself admits she threw a shit fit when she got the email with the promissory note. I guess having been in that type of situation myself a couple of times, and having witnessed a lot personality overlap between Shannon and my family members, I find John a lot more credible. The most likely reason for the tantrum in my experience is that Shannon was infuriated that he felt he wanted her to sign something since that would imply that she is untrustworthy, that she would be the kind of person who wouldn't keep a promise of paying him back etc. Probably with a heaping dose of tears and guilting. The alternative perspective, that he changed his mind and agreed it was a gift doesn't seem as likely to me, but of course there are always alternate explanations. I've never liked John and I've actively disliked Alexis since her first run on the show, but I actually totally understand where he's coming from here. But again, bias for sure. My sister would whine to everyone who would listen about how I'm a terrible sister who has never done anything for her while neglecting to mention that she was fairly heavily in debt to me. She gifted me an expensive jacket that she had ordered in the wrong size and couldn't return, afterwards she felt that this unsolicited generosity should be met with forgiveness of a loan that was 50x that value. I had pages and pages of her her texts begging me for money and promising that she would pay me back immediately, and she still tried to pull the "we never really agreed it was a loan, I didn't sign anything official, it was basically a gift." I have eventually gotten the money back each time after some strong-arming, but in years rather than weeks or months, and without the interest payments she always claimed she would pay when I started to hound her for my money back. If she was a public figure who had been trash talking me to the rest of the world, not just our friends and family, and her offer was to pay me back some of the money and no interest but I had to sign a gag order I would have been infuriated. I actually find his anger at having been portrayed as a gold-digger/deadbeat boyfriend while in reality he is the one who has been funding her (whether through loans or through gifts) very reasonable. Shannon on the other hand is acting in a way that is very familiar to me, and that's why I find her so off-putting. Just pure entitlement. She can't have it both ways, he cant both have been completely ungenerous throughout the relationship and be the guy who gifted her 75k without expecting to have it paid back. "Something in the buttermilk ain't clean." For me this is not at all about John and Alexis. They both annoy me and they both seem like assholes, but where I differ from (most?) other people is that I find Shannon's behavior despicable regardless.

Maybe I'm biased because I've got a couple of "Shannons" in my family, and I've been the John in this situation several times. You don't sign papers before hand because your intimate associate swears up and down that they will pay you back and it's an emergency and they need money right now but they will pay you back next week/month/year. And they already know that you have cash or cash-like savings so you can lend it to them, and they are in a situation where they've already paid a deposit that they will lose out on if you don't lend them this money that is just sitting around. Do you hate them so much that you won't help them out? Do you really think they are so untrustworthy and terrible of a person that you need legal protection from them? Wow! If the situation was reversed they promise they would help you out! (They would not, but they make you feel like a monster for not doing it). Then the date that they promised they would pay you back comes up, but they pretend like nothing. If you bring it up they would have paid you back, but unexpected things came up so they can't. They did have the opportunity to buy all sorts of new expensive shit that you notice when you go to their house. If you point that out you are met with an emotional meltdown about how much you must hate them to not think they are worthy of a new vitamix/couch/car/whatever. And if you were a good person like them you would have just let them keep the money without asking for it back, that's what they would have done if they were in your position but your obviously not as good of a person. And if the person does chose to give it back it's out of the kindness of their heart, because they are not obligated. Guh. Much like Kim on RHOBH this is giving me deja vu, and I can tell that a lot of people that are on the side of people like Shannon don't have a lot of real life experience dealing with a Shannon. In this episode I don't see the sweet woman who is clearly overwhelmed by the hardest life ever, I see a woman who is weaponizing tears constantly. I find her extremely manipulative, and the strongest association I get from her is the waif-y end of the cluster b spectrum.

I feel like I'm the only person on the internet that has zero sympathy for Shannon. She drove drunk and then pretended that she was walking her dog, who was in the car that she crashed while driving drunk. She obviously guilted her boyfriend at the time into giving her a fairly sizable loan, and no matter how gross he is she is just as gross for weaselling out of paying it back. She should have paid it back before the statute of limitations was coming up and none of this would have become public. I don't feel sorry for her that he had to sue her in order to get the money back, 75k is a lot of money. Even for someone with high income. She's having a tough year because of her own awful decisions and she's going to keep getting drunk and doing dumb shit because everyone enables her. Tamra this season is sort of like Ramona was most of time; usually right but her terrible delivery turns people off.

I agree, I don't think Garcelle qualifies as wealthy (Santa Clarita!). She was doing okay financially but I'm pretty sure she's made more from this show and the added exposure than she did during the preceding decade. I hope she continues to think it's worth it because as far as I'm concerned she's worth every penny Bravo is paying her and then some. Top tier housewife and she's showing it this reunion. Crystal is sort of on the opposite end of the spectrum to me. She looks amazing and I want to like her but she's falling flat to me.

It is, but I don't think it's D'Andra's trust. I'm guessing he left it with both of them as beneficiaries, but Mama Dee in charge until she passes.

I absolutely agree. But as the devil's advocate, that would be another explanation for why she couldn't get a mortgage (other than the money's all run out). Also why the kids and the count chose to sue her to stop her from transferring their portion of the hamptons property into this money pit.

I had to go back through my old links and look, but I thought I had found the house when I was snooping around for it when it was first reported. This house fits the description really well. It's definitely a "mansion", it overlooks the Hudson River and the pricing matches since it was first listed for 5M and then had a price bump. Keep in mind that I have absolutely no inside knowledge and just has been looking through listings online. This was the house that came closest to her description that I could find.

That's actually a good point, and very true. My point isn't that she overpaid, just that she hasn't underpaid either. This makes it very difficult to resell for any real profit, once you take transfer costs, commissions and improvements into consideration. She bought the house at market value which was 2 million, I'm not saying that it was worth less than that. It's just that it could have been higher if it was in a SLIGHTLY better location, aka not on the main east-west thoroughfare of the Hamptons. The way the market moves in the future will dictate if it is profitable or not.

Best case outcome I can get if I run the numbers in excel is a modest profit on the house as a rental, and that assumes she's got non-existent maintenance costs and full occupancy throughout the rental season at her full asking price for the rent. Even if she were to get lucky on all of those factors one year, it's extremely unlikely in a longer term perspective. Even in the short term it's a best case scenario that she's making money and far more likely that she's breaking even (if she has a great mortgage) or taking a loss. She's unlikely even if EVERYTHING goes right for her to make more money back on a per-cash basis than practically risk-free investments, which makes this a questionable investment on a risk-adjusted basis. It's a single family house so it's extremely doubtful that she could depreciate it, but even if she could that is an accounting approach that temporarily lowers your tax burden -- you have to actually pay that tax in full if you sell the property. She has a chance to make a decent profit in a sale (or as a rental) if the Hamptons market rises significantly in the coming years, but on the flip side she's likely to make a huge loss if the market turns down. (Sorry, I realize this is probably super-boring to a lot of you guys, but I live for this stuff. )

The fact that Ramona has tacky taste doesn't mean she was wrong about Bethennys property. Bethenny bought a house at a discount because it's in a subpar location. SUBpar. It sits less than 100ft back from the main highway on the east end. Seriously, look it up on google streetview (2623 Montauk Hwy, East Hampton, NY 11937) and check through the image history: even in the dead of winter there is heavy traffic, and in the summer it's completely packed with ALL the traffic passing through the East End. Anybody going east of Bridgehampton is passing right by. It doesn't matter that there is a hedge in between. You can hear it, and you can definitely smell it. If you try to walk the short distance to Bridgehampton town you will definitely feel it. This isn't some secret deal that Bethenny got in on, the house had been on the market, renovated, for a long time with no takers. It doesn't matter that the house itself was a great and barely needed any renovations from her other than a coat of paint, the same factors that made her get an ostensibly good price are still there now that she's trying to rent and sell it. And they can't be hidden. Nobody going to look at the house will miss that it sits on the HIGHWAY. Literally. The economics for this house doesn't pencil out, not as a flip and not as a rental project. (And yes, I know that Bethenny did some creative accounting and claimed to be making a profit by renting it out, but that's only true if you ignore alternative costs: if the income you're making from your investment can't cover mortgage interest of the purchase price, realtor fees and property taxes, you're not actually making a profit, you're eating a big fat loss.)

She's renting. I looked it up on streeteasy (i'm a real estate creeper) and it's listed as having rented for around 7k per month, though most new leases right now has a one or two free rent month concession since it's a down market. I think she was trying to rent her townhouse for 30k per month, but I'm guessing she actually got way lower than that. I'm so glad this show is back on. I was trying to get into RHOBH, but it just doesn't have the same pull for me anymore. Unlike many I actually miss Carole, and I was doubtful I'd stick around without her, but I still love/hate most of these ol gals enough it would seem.

This right here is probably part of the dynamic that Carole is tired of with Bethenny. She's not her parent, and is positioned to be her inferior, yet she's constantly expected to mother Bethenny and put her needs first. Bethenny doesn't need to put Carole first or not shit on her in return since she "doesn't know better". As she said, it's a lot of Bethenny and not a lot of Carole. And despite of this, the notion that Bethenny owns her shit still stands--even though she can't even fess up to being "a taker" emotionally, something that has been blatantly clear throughout the seasons. But that's totally okay, because see she doesn't know any better. Bethenny has a lot of fun sides, and I can understand why someone would befriend her. But for me she would quickly become a "once in a while" type of friend, because I've stopped putting up with being the person doing all the emotional labor. It isn't a mystery to me that Carole tried to pull back a bit as well.

I'm pretty sure it would also mean that Bethenny could sign off to use Bryn in her TV shows and other PR endeavors without input from Jason. ETA: oops just realized that the page wasn't reloaded for a while so this has already been brought up. I'm not a fan of Jason (his alleged treatment of Cookie really turned me off him), but after I realized that Bethenny is the person who's been prolonging this custody fight by filing for sole custody, I lost any sympathy I had for the "hell" and "torture" it's bringing her. And it's made me hugely skeptical of her motives. Add in her own Cookie seizure video complete with panic attack in front of Bryn, as well as her choice to post about Bryn's ongoing grief over Cookie and I just don't have a lot of faith left in her. At this point I think she'll do almost anything for pity and attention, and while I think she genuinely loves her daughter I don't think she's able to understand the negative impact the decisions she makes will have on her emotional health. I used to think she was just a bit "damaged" by her upbringing, but she's coming off more and more like a person with a personality disorder to me. And I'm sorry if this is considered un-PC at the moment, but that's never a good quality in a parent.

Is there a source for this? I may be blanking out, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't any threats of violence involved.