[Carole Radziwill: She's a Real Princess!]

15 hours ago, Teri313 said:

Yes, well put. This is how she elevates herself and cuts people off/down - by actually trying to shame them. In a video someone posted above, she says, when asked if she will miss the show, "“I’m not missing really anything, the drama, the negativity. It’s hard to navigate that kind of addiction, mental health issues. I don’t do well with emotionally unstable women.” So she doesn't like drama and negativity, but she turns around in the same sentence and labels them with mental health issues. And she's apparently intolerant of said mental health issues. I also thought it was very hypocritical of her to bash BF for not being supportive of women (i.e., Ramona's skin care line) when I seem to recall Aviva coming to her to get some advice and support when she was writing/co-writing her book. Carole's response was to be OFFENDED that Aviva would have the AUDACITY to think that SHE could write a book. Unless you had Carole's education and years of experience, you had no business trying to write a book. I don't think Aviva would have made the ghost writer comment if Carole had been open to her and more supportive of a woman stretching herself and trying something new. Carole's an asshole, period. And she needs to learn when to use "me" instead of "I" at the end of a sentence. Drives me crazy.

 

OMG -- that makes me insane!

I've seen Carole shame critics on Twitter for tiny things that could be typos. Her writing is full of spelling and grammar errors.

[Carole Radziwill: She's a Real Princess!]

19 hours ago, ShawnaLanne said:

Me too. If I remember right it was a bunch of eat less, make healthy choices, and excercise more advice, wrapped up in a, for a book, dynamic interior design.

 

I remember her schtick around food resembled what I know of eating disorder therapy, which has a lot to do with eliminating cycles of restriction of "forbidden" foods and binge/emotional eating. I seem to remember her saying that there were no rules against certain kinds of foods (e.g., French fries) and the only rules are things like "no food noise" (obsessive, anxious worrying about food and exercise) and no binging. The theory behind that approach in the eating disorder landscape is that your body will just reach a natural "set point" -- someplace that is neither overweight nor underweight for your particular body. I think that's actually what Bethenny is referring to by "Naturally Thin," but she branded it in a different way. I'm not sure how I feel about her use of the words "thin" or "skinny," but understand that it was a marketing choice at the time.

The correct term is "fat shaming," not "skinny shaming," although I have never thought that Bethenny's brand really was fat shaming (it might have been a little tone deaf). But even if it was, Carole doesn't know the correct term, which suggests to me that she doesn't really know or care much about the relevant issues around fatness and body image. She was just using a term (incorrectly) as a way to get at Bethenny. On a not unrelated note, I don't think Carole understands what "age shaming" or "ageism" mean to people who are really concerned about those issues. Just like she doesn't understand what the term "bullying" means to people who are concerned about bullying. And she doesn't understand what being "tone deaf" around race and ethnicity and culture means to people who are actually concerned about those issues. She just appropriates and misuses a lot of phrases she thinks have something to do with being politically righteous.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

49 minutes ago, BodhiGurl said:

I honestly don't understand why Carole felt it was necessary to clarify the level of closeness, or lack there of, she had with Tinsley - via that tweet she sent out. Complete with suggestions of "closer" friends of hers people could follow if they wanted to follow quality people. Regardless of what Bethenny said about Tins and Carole hanging together a lot - they clearly hung out a lot more than BF and Carole were at that time. But I don't think it was terribly kind or necessary for Carole to reiterate how not close to Tinsley she really is. She's left the show. She shouldn't care what viewers or her twitter followers think. Her close friends and BFF know who they are.

I completely agree with this!!! I actually don't think Bethenny ever made that big of a deal of Carole and Tinsley's closeness. She said exactly one time that they were "BFFs" and "thick as thieves," and she appeared vulnerable and sensitive to the relationship in Cartagena -- even jealous. So what? From watching the show, I didn't feel like she was spinning a huge story about Carole so much as she was just processing her own feelings and perception of the situation. That's what everyone does is situations where they're being ghosted, or faded out, or just experiencing a shift in a relationship. They come up with speculative theories about what was happening. Whether those theories are true or not doesn't matter. There was nothing even remotely defamatory in what Bethenny said.

Carole is the one who repeated the terms "BFF" and "thick as thieves" over and over and over and over. It didn't need to matter. Now her story is that she and Bethenny were never that close, and she just got focussed on other stuff and wanted more space to focus on herself. What's the difference? That's a comparable explanation to the idea that she became closer friends with Tinsley. Neither explanation is better or worse. Why focus so much on the accuracy?

Carole seems obsessed with defining the level of closeness of all her relationships -- letting everyone know that she is simultaneously so cool that she won't define anything, but also that she's super #rideordie. Teenagers sometimes present themselves that way, because they tend to have idealized understandings of their own identities. Adults know that it's okay to be vulnerable and crave intimacy, and also that none of us can be loyal all the time. I think Carole is mainly angry that Bethenny undermined Carole's "cool girl" autobiography, and the main problem with that is it just wasn't cool to begin with.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

8 hours ago, Rap541 said:

Agreed.

Here's where I specifically dislike the usage when it comes from Carole. Carole makes a point of presenting herself as the group intellectual, the one who knows about and is concerned about politics and world events, the one who understands how difficult it is to be a working woman in the world because unlike the others, she's been on the front lines of Afghanistan as a female journalist, she is a voting woman, hear her roar, etc etc etc.

But she's also a girl! A 54 year old girl who wants to play dumb and be silly and be protected and do wild crazy girly silly things like shack up with a guy half her age and engage in a social media ex friend bashing that puts actual junior high bitches to shame....

But she doesn't want to be *shamed* for engaging in "girl" behavior - despite acting like a child, she wants to be respected as a woman and doesn't see that referring to her lapses of maturity as "being a girl" isn't really helping. 

I trust, as insistent as Carole is on wanting to be a "girl", she would be enraged if she was told to leave a serious political discussion because "Carole, you're a girl, and men are talking".

I think you are dead on!

I have also always noticed that Carole has a very distinctive way of emphasizing the word "girl" in self-narration. The other women often refer to the whole group in terms of "the girls." But Carole is constantly talking about "the kind of girl" she is, and she has a tendency to paint pejorative pictures of a generic type of woman and follow up by saying "I'm not that girl."

Carole claims to be less self-involved than someone like Bethenny who is so focussed on personal drama and her brand. But, for me Carole seems constantly to be doing autobiography, and that often involves distinguishing herself from (and implicitly saying she is superior to) caricatures she draws of types of women. I think her use of the word "girl" is a big part of that.

[Carole Radziwill: She's a Real Princess!]

55 minutes ago, AnnA said:

Never gets old.

Just saw an interview with Carole. I think her favourite way to avoid taking responsibility is to describe herself, and then say "I'm not that girl."

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

7 hours ago, AnnA said:

 

Thank you, Anna! This is so amazing!!

[Carole Radziwill: She's a Real Princess!]

On 8/26/2018 at 10:00 PM, lunastartron said:

Carole has been a pretty perfect match for this cohort of women and the franchise at large precisely because she’s not a quinquagenarian “girl” who lay down with dogs and got fleas but, rather, a pig who’s reveled in shit from the beginning of her tenure on the show. 

Since her first season, she’s lobbed vile grenades at colleagues and acquaintances who have done her no ill  with all of the casual smugness and self-satisfaction of an especially puerile tween farting in an elevator. 

From more or less immediately ridiculing LuAnn’s immutable biological characteristics (“pumpkin head”; “I heard two male voices; one belonged to LuAnn”) way before any substantive conflict erupted between them to sneering that Dorinda’s boyfriend is “sweaty and misshapen,” she certainly hasn’t shied away from shaming others for their physical appearance. 

That would be despicable enough, but it takes a genuinely sick and malicious moral fiber (or lack thereof) to stage whisper “it’s hard to watch her eat” and “I don’t know about eating disorders but I know about denial” in front of a recovering anorexic let alone reference the near-fatal abuse a friend once suffered from a romantic partner in order to explain why said friend was unexpectedly more composed during a shared experience. Or, just as disgustingly, use the premature deaths of of a spouse and other loved ones to deride the pain of a former friend because she hasn’t personally endured losses of that magnitude.

Personality aside, Widow’s Guide was completed during Carole’s maiden season. For what has she been using the show as a platform since? Selling her “gently used” clothes on Poshmark, conducting seances on other reality cable programming to communicate with the spirits of friends who died two decades ago, and slinging donuts in the park. She certainly didn’t fulfill her contractual obligation to produce a second book per the terms of the deal on which the publisher also wouldn’t have come close to recouping the advance it paid for Widow’s Guide.

As for her erudition and intellect, Carole can sure pontificate about cultural and political topics ... just not intelligently if her grotesquely colonialistic and misinformed attempts to play white savior on behalf indigenous Americans is any indication (yup, plenty of Indians “above the third grade” apply that term of choice to themselves and aren’t served by a #richwhitegirl issuing prouncements about and/or policing “racial vanity”). 

Similarly, clutching one’s pearls about “misogyny” and “ageism” doesn’t have quite the same credibility after one has giggled “I didn’t know if she was adopting him or dating him” about a co-worker; speculated about the precise weight and figure of a recovering anorexic on national television; and rationalized that being called a “slut” is “hot” in order to defend an ally shrieking that epithet at the top of her lungs as well as contriving to sexually humiliate a common foe in every way possible. 

Like the thug in a cocktail dress that she is, she has turned on Bethenny and Andy on her way out not because of any moral awakening but because their own varieties of vileness are no longer in service to and convenient for her.

Jovani, indeed! This is pretty much my favourite post ever.

I especially appreciate the incisive comments on Carole's comments about "Indian." I could not believe how offensive and just plain stupid that was!

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

15 minutes ago, whydoievencare said:

Apparently she did run a half marathon in Oct/17 (according to her Instagram) before running the NYC marathon in Nov/17.

I think she should have done some more of them, or just stuck with shorter distances. She just didn't look prepared for that marathon.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

5 hours ago, KungFuBunny said:

She already looked exhausted at the start line. She had the worst running form. Her arms flailed and even at the beginning she had a awkward gait expending too much energy. She should not have had a phone in her hand. She had the blue tooth, The phone could have gone in the pocket. Was she thinking she was going to tweet? Post things up on Poshmark? Take Instagram selfies? She had fake lashes on! Oy

I think the marathon really messed up her body. Running, jogging - is high impact - I think she did a total number on her joints. She does not look healthy. The extra weight loss makes her botched plastic surgery to the face look even worse.

I really noticed how terrible her form is, too! She looked so uncomfortable, and in the footage I saw she was mostly walking...and then having trouble even walking. It would have been much better for her to start with something like a half-marathon, or even just a 10K, and try to learn to be more comfortable in her body. I agree that the marathon probably messed up her body.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

1 minute ago, lezlers said:

I'm glad she did.  Carole is sitting up there, smug as hell, straight up LYING about her nastiness.  She went so far as to say Andy was full of shit when he implied her and Beth were BOTH nasty this season.  Come on.  It makes me nuts when they out and out lie like that. 

I am beginning to believe that Carole actually believes her own bullshit -- as in, she does lie sometimes, but often she's not so much lying as she's become very, very, very sane, as in the intensity and attention have gotten into her head, and she's just living in some alternate reality she and her puppets have constructed. Kind of like her pal POTUS 45.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

9 hours ago, UsernameFatigue said:

So Carole is saying that wearing lingerie was her job? So is she saying she was a "lady of the evening" at one point in her life? Hmmmmm. But honestly, isn't she years behind Hugh Heffner for wearing bedclothes as outerwear? But you just keep telling yourself you're the cool girl, HippoCarole. 

When I saw that post, I cringed with embarrassment for her. Bragging about being ahead of the game fashion-wise? It's so juvenile, I can't even...

Bethenny made a couple of modest comments about how Carole had become pretty oriented to superficial things like her appearance. I'd like someone to count the number of comments, because I did not hear her repeating this stuff even a fraction as much as Carole repeated it. And Carole went apeshit about Bethenny's false narration and lying. But Carole is the one doing the things that make her look vain and superficial (and juvenile). How she cannot see that is beyond me.

I actually think Carole draws attention to her fashion sense and how sexy her body is more than most of the other housewives. Ramona is pretty vain and superficial too, though she would never try to deny that. Carole doesn't like being compared with girly girl Tinsley. Tinsley did the glam squad thing in Cartagena and she seems to have some obsession about having her hair done. But other than that, I don't see her constantly saying "look at how cool and sexy my clothes are...look at how hot my body is..." the way Carole does.

[Carole Radziwill: She's a Real Princess!]

9 hours ago, ScoobieDoobs said:

OK, so Carole made a huge, big, woo-de-doo announcement on her twitter that she's signed with Verve -- and this is supposed to be her showing Bethenny she's got a career?  Er, except . . . what the fuckety fuck is Verve?  Well, reading further comments, it's apparently some kind of agency -- and no, nothing about a job or career.  So why do this?  Seems premature & desperate to me.

I agree it's desperate. And hypocritical, but no surprises there. She knows a lot of people will assume that she landed a new job, so she's trying to create a narrative by implication. Signing with an agency suggests she's looking for new projects. Kind of wondering about two possible scenarios: One is that she just signed up with the new agency so she could make a big announcement and keep the drama going. The second is that she knew she was at loose-ends career-wise all along, and just constructed this huge drama with Bethenny to get her name in the media spotlight (and she doesn't actually mind that the press she's getting is negative).

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

2 hours ago, AnnA said:

I'll make it for you but you'll have to tell me what you want it to say.

Ha-- that's so awesome. Thank you.

"You get the face you deserve!"

[Carole Radziwill: She's a Real Princess!]

15 minutes ago, AnnA said:

YES - Carole makes no sense and made no sense during the reunion. 

She thought she was so clever, organizing and preparing her "Dream Team" with one goal in mind........to take down Bethenny.    She failed!

 

Oh...someone must have forgot to give us the memo that she was holding Bethenny "accountable." That's not what I thought accountability means, but I am not the kind of girl who is very, very, very sane and has a huge hippocampus.

I just remembered Teddi Mellencamp and her accountability coach business. Can't stop thinking Carole should send in her stellar resume. Or maybe she already did and the reunion was like an audition.

[Carole Radziwill: She's a Real Princess!]

On 9/7/2018 at 6:51 PM, BodhiGurl said:

Who is Carole and Cassandra trying to prove their friendship to? Suddenly all these posts of them together or about each other? Why do they give a hoot who thinks what about their friendship other than themselves? Who cares what the RHONY audience thinks? Carole is no longer on the show... give it a rest already Yeesh. And all the declarations essentially of Carole accepting herself for who she is and how old she is and yet her face LITERALLY changed before our eyes because of anti aging botox/fillers/whatever the heck she did to her face. I watched some S5 episodes recently and the difference btwn then and now is startling... dare I admit I feel Carole had a unique beauty back then. She looked altered even then, but more natural than now... If she was truly accepting of her age and had no "shame" then why not stop with the fillers etc? I don't know who she's trying to fool or why they think this narrative is so important to get out. Lordt. They need to find a new hobby. Enjoy their lives of privilege and not give two f's about what people think...

 

YES!

Let's set a couple of things aside. First, it's not bashing and bullying to say that someone needs to have a best friend. It's not bashing and bullying to create a narrative that someone needs to have a best friend, even if that narrative is false. It's also not bashing and bullying to use that narrative as an explanation of why your friend started to distance themselves from you. Second, sometimes people just make up explanations for why things happened in the moment to explain it to themselves. The BFF comment might have been a bit exaggerated, but who cares? Children take labels like "best friend" super seriously -- it's like an occupation. Adults kind of throw that language around a bit more casually. All Bethenny seemed to mean was that there was something different about her relationship with Carole, and Carole seemed to be hanging out with Tinsley a lot. Carole latched on to this "BFF" and "thick as thieves" language and blew it up into something it didn't need to be.

But let's say Carole is right, and I'm wrong about the above. Let's say Bethenny actually slandered her by creating a narrative that "Carole's the kind of person who needs to have a best friend." Why on god's green earth is Carole going out of her way to prove Bethenny right? Carole makes no sense.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

1 hour ago, bravofan27 said:

This one is the best. This is the snarl when Tinsley says she likes Carole because she is a girly girl.

I love it too. Please let this become a meme.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

25 minutes ago, Gem 10 said:

What the hell.  Have to did out my dictionary.  That’s snobbery right there.

Most hilarious to me is that, if Carole wants to suggest that wearing lingerie as outerwear is her job, or the thing she's most outstandingly good at -- what metier actually means -- she is either making herself look more pathetic about this career thing, or proving that her "tongue-in-cheek" humour is just kind of stupid. Maybe a bit of both.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

7 minutes ago, jinjer said:

 

There were reports in late Feb/Early March 2018 that Carole's sales on Poshmark were going to a "good cause". But it wasn't specified. Here is her tweet: 

Metier?! My puny hippocampus can't process how funny/clever that is. Maybe Carole could give a Twitter seminar to explain it, if she can ever find the time in her cool schedule.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

1 hour ago, noveltylibrary said:

I was disappointed in B's hippo tweet, I have been kind of loving watching Carole spin her wheels while B never addressed anything.

as she furiously sends out more anti-B tweets...

I was a bit disappointed too...but, I will say that, by my count, Bethenny has put out exactly two tweets to egg Carole on, and to me, it seemed each one was timed just-so and crafted to hit just where it would hurt. Bethenny does go low, but when she does, she doesn't mess around.

Carole on the other hand looks (to me) like she's tripping over her own feet with her pseudo-smart bullshit. I saw some Tweet within the past couple of weeks -- can't find it in her mountain of word salad -- that "corrected" someone's observation that one of her self-narratives (last good summer, maybe?) was pathetic or something to that effect. She schooled them by letting them know something like that it was tongue-in-cheek and therefore clever. Is there any clearer sign that you're not funny and clever than explaining that you are?

[Carole Radziwill: She's a Real Princess!]

On 9/6/2018 at 12:16 AM, Jel said:

I appreciate your respectful disagreement. *I* think she works at it, if you don't that's ok with me :)

I don't care if she donates blood or not, just saying that the reason she gave is because she doesn't meet the weight requirement. And that I think she is intentionally keeping herself very thin, and in doing so, and being a celebrity, in her way she's contributing to the skinny bs that haunts women and girls, too. My opinion only.

I've always kind of thought this myself, but not wanted to comment on it. She constantly drinks diet coke, and even though she always talked about a junk-food diet before the marathon, it sort of seemed like she was just not "into" food -- so she probably did eat junk food, but not very much of it.

I have spent my fair share of time in contexts where dieting is considered a bit gauche and uncool, but all the women are rail thin by some amazing stroke of metabolism. A pretty common approach to food is not being interested in it, along with coffee and diet coke.

I remember that vodka, cucumbers, and butter joke, because that really, honestly sounded like the kind of combination someone with an eating disorder would think up. I know someone who was anorexic who used to get a huge kick out of having nothing but gin and olives in her kitchen. (I've also spent a lot of time around women with eating disorders.)

ETA: I am not saying Carole has an eating disorder. I just suspect that she works at her weight.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

43 minutes ago, BodhiGurl said:

wait - she took 9+ hours to run/walk 13 miles??? Woah. And she really emphasized running a marathon, not a half marathon... she doesn't lie, she just makes the narrative fit what she needs it to fit... (insert eye roll). Yeah - I couldn't "run" even a mile, it's not about the fact she completed something, it's about her lying that she ran a marathon, and then her ridiculous expectations after. Honestly. I can't even anymore with Carole. Ugh.

ETA: My issue is her omission that she actually finished a half marathon vs a marathon, I literally thought she did the entire marathon given the way she kept bringing it up and insisting her own version of a "Vicki Gunvalson Wants a Casserole" attention, that bugs me... Technically she didn't lie, but she didn't tell the truth..

 

Was it really a half-marathon? Wow. When I watched the episode, I noticed she had pretty awkward running form and was mostly walking -- not crimes at all. I feel like something about exercising for the first time and doing a race got into her head. Those things are awesome. But she kind of lost sight of the fact that amateur running is the most boring thing in the world to everyone except the people doing it.

I am the most mediocre of runners, and have done a few half marathons. I've had someone close to me meet me at the finish line -- as in arrived fifteen minutes before my estimated completion time, and then we went to lunch and mostly talked about something else. I was so honoured! If all my friends showed up and decided to throw me a party, I'd wonder if something was wrong.

What would happen if Carole took up cross-fit?

ETA: I see above that it really was the full marathon. Okay. Kudos for that, Carole -- that's a long, long race. I still stand by saying amateur running is boring. I mean, let's be honest, running is boring unless you're being chased.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

14 minutes ago, Mozelle said:

I believe Bethenny said this to Dorinda as well early in the season.

And as far as the prestige of her career being greatly exaggerated, Carole has won Emmys for news producing. News shows will always be team work. The anchor or correspondent may get all the public glory and may be the person whose names we know (e.g., Peter Jennings, Barbara Walters, Lester Holt), but there is a team of producers that makes all that possible.

Thanks for pointing out the Bethenny to Dorinda exchange! (It's always interesting to me how the whole season gives an impression, but I can't always really remember the details.)

I agree with what you say about journalism being teamwork. I still don't feel comfortable judging the quality of someone's work or their skill on the basis of awards, especially ones from a long time ago, where I don't know much about the context. It's not that we should discount awards, but they don't give the most well-rounded picture. 

I'll also admit that I just really, really don't like Carole's writing, and I know others would disagree with me on that. And I'm suspicious of her abilities as a journalist because she seems to me to suffer from tunnel-vision and to be a poor fact checker.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

51 minutes ago, Maximona said:

My only bewilderment about Carole is that I can't for the life of me figure out why she agreed to do this show in the first place, however many years ago that was.  Did she have a book coming out at the time?  I seem dimly to remember that she did.  And I guess she thought the Bravo exposure would help her sell more copies.  Though she's waaay too good a writer to appeal to most people who watch Bravo.

I have not read Carole's books (and have no interest), but find the writing in her blogs and even her Tweeting shockingly bad for someone who claims to be a writer. It's full of spelling and grammar mistakes and malapropisms, but that's not even the issue. For me, it's just so bombastic, and in an almost embarrassingly amateurish way. A lot of the writing on this forum puts Carole's blog writing to shame.

Bravo's target audience is urban, upwardly mobile, educated women. The whole brand is elevated trash television -- guilty pleasures for the literate. So, I'm willing to agree that my opinion that Carole's writing is bad is just an opinion. But she's not producing highbrow literature, and, even if she were, the people who watch Bravo could handle it.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

2 hours ago, thesupremediva1 said:

No, see, it does not work that way. When you say, repeatedly, that someone does not have a career, you should expect to get shit for it. Especially with a career as impressive as Carole's. The fact that Beth doubled down on it just shows how nasty she truly is, because the one thing we all know she isn't is stupid. And STUPID you'd have to be do say as many times as B did that Carole has no career.

So, due to Beth's clear and repeated allegations, Carole figured it was time to shut her up and list her accomplishments. Sadly, we never get to hear the half of it - especially the prestigious awards - because the Maw of Frankel had to interrupt with her own resume. Which, by the way, NO ONE ASKED FOR. Carole never did anything so mean-spirited, insecure, and disrespectful on TV as say that Bethenny didn't have a career. That was all B, and she should pay the piper for that one. Empowering women, my ass. She would tear down a 9-year-old with a lemonade stand if she could. 

I remember Bethenny first saying that Carole didn't have a career in one of the TH -- as part of a list of things Carole has in common with Tinsley. I didn't think she repeated it again until the reunion, in response to Carole's repeatedly saying she had been bashed and having arguably bashed back (taking shots at Bethenny's career) on her blog. I could be missing something, but I don't remember Bethenny being repetitive about the career thing outside the confrontation at the reunion. I have seen and continue to see Carole being repetitive about the career thing (and a lot of other things) over a longer stretch of time and all over the internet.

Bethenny kind of wants to say the career comment was a neutral fact, not bashing. Okay..I think it was a bit of a dig, and that Bethenny knows this. But a little dig is not the same thing as bashing or bullying or slander. And the dig exploits the fact that Carole's whole persona from the very beginning was boho writer girl who doesn't understand deadlines and contracts, and leads a fancy-free life: "No work and all play makes me a happy girl." So Carole is stuck with having already suggested that she's fine with being known as a slacker.

I actually think the slacker persona is contrived. All the journalists and writers I know (I work in publishing) are workaholics -- you have to be to stay relevant. Carole says in her bio on her website that at least part of the reason she took the RHONY job was the paycheque, and, I mean, she's hawking used clothes on the internet. I think the other (unstated) reason she took the job was to try to make herself relevant in media again after a long work hiatus. And that that's the reason she's so angry about Bethenny saying she doesn't have a career. But just a theory.

I would never say Carole never had a career, or one that she couldn't be proud of. But I also think the prestige of her career is greatly exaggerated, and the fact that most of her accomplishments are so dated helps to hide that -- we can't see her journalistic work right in front of us. I think the awards are for group projects, which we don't have in front of us to see, and we don't know what role Carole played. The main piece of work we have to judge her by is her memoir. Some great writers have written about themselves, including in memoirs, but I don't know any career writer whose main accomplishment is limited to one mostly autobiographical narrative.

[S10.E22: Reunion Part 3]

4 hours ago, esco1822 said:

Forgive me if someone has already addressed this but I think what Carole was trying to do was to combat the implication that BECAUSE she and Tins were BFF, she didn't have time to be a friend to B anymore. I think her message came across very poorly but she was trying to that her friendship with Tins wasn't so all consuming that she was unable to be a friend to anyone else. 

I think Carole's goal is to convince the audience that Bethenny is a liar and a bad person, and that and Carole is a truth-teller and a good person. And part of this is combating the implication that because she and Tinsley were BFFs, she didn't have time to be a friend to Bethenny anymore. My problem is that she can't accept that it's not working.

To me, proving that the reason for the shift in friendship wasn't Tinsley does nothing to prove that Bethenny is a liar or a bad person. Maybe Bethenny just misinterpreted the situation -- that doesn't make her a liar. I actually don't think the issue of how close Tinsley and Carole were is black-and-white (Tinsley sure seems to have perceived it differently). I also don't think how much or little the T&C friendship had to do with Carole's shift with Bethenny is black-and-white. So, for me, Carole is arguing about a point that can't be proved one way or the other.

But let's just say, for argument's sake, that Bethenny exaggerated or misrepresented what she was seeing. Rejection hurts, and most normal people deal with it by telling stories that makes themselves feel better, sometimes stretching imagination. (That's exactly what Carole seems to be doing with her narrative about Adam.) Doing that doesn't make anyone a liar or a bad person -- it just reflects that humans do weird shit to protect the psyche from pain.

For me, the really dumb part of this is that Carole imagines that this is a good and evil story that hinges on who is responsible for the shift in her friendship with Bethenny. I don't think that's what matters. What matters is how each person has handled the shift in friendship. Both have behaved poorly, and Carole looks especially bad because she won't stop beating dead horses that expose her hubris and hypocrisy.

Also, Carole is not only humiliating Tinsley, she's making herself look like a total asshole in the process. And people are telling her, but she won't stop. That seems pathological.