amarante

Also most strippers and sex workers do NOT have any kind of happy ending - even if happy ending is interpreted as marrying a rich vulgar old men and being a trophy wife. Marry for money and earn every penny as the cliche goes. And that is the best of outcomes and it is equivalent to thinking one is going to become rich and famous as a pop star or professional athlete. I am not taking a moral high ground but just in terms of how the overwhelming number of women (or men) are exploited and are in potentially dangerous situations. As well as having an inevitable impact down the road just as the survivor of any kind of abuse is going to have to deal with issues relating to that.

Okay. I fast forward through alot of the narrative so I probably missed that. I suspect that it is more of a narrative in the ones that I remember it being a factor so I couldn't have missed it

😂 My shriveled dark heart was just coming her to post that I thought this was a complete sugar mama relationship. I would also surmise that an investor and an anonymous business owner is code for someone who has no gainful means of support. Hopefully he isn't a day trader with access to her credit line. ETA Not only was there not a whisper of a need for a home office for the entrepreneur but also not even a throwaway line about how he works remotely so relocation isn't an issue. Nothing spells classy like someone who used a credit card to buy a grotesquely ugly "lounge" sofa with multiple cup holders and who needs some kind of giant truck - I ask for what purpose? Although we didn't see much of the parents' home, I think the parents are reasonably well off judging from the kitchen as it appeared they had a Subzero integrated refrigerator. Hopefully they are smart enough to have an iron clad agreement in place so that the loser boyfriend doesn't attempt to claim ownership of the house. I was also surprised that there was no mention of proximity to the hospital where she is doing her residency. All of the shows dealing with doctors who have to be on call at hospitals have had a requirement that they be within a certain number of miles or certain amount of time to get there.

I think the difference is that Dorothy does not appear to be a weak person with a troubled pass. She seems to be more like Kandi's mother in that her relationship with her daughter including her demeaning the husband was viewed quite negatively by many viewers. Ironically of course Kandi's mother seemed to be financially dependent on Kandi to an unhealthy degree which played into dysfunctional dynamics versus the opposite with Dorothy. Mia's mother seemed to be emotionally fragile and I am not buying that Mia doesn't harbor ill feelings towards the mother for what went on in her past especially since there seems to be some kind of difference between relationships with the child who she nanny's for and Mia with whom she had no relationship until the show.

The tag lines would have been chosen after the arrest and she has officially pled not guilty. She can't deny being arrested so she is acknowledging arrest but proclaiming innocence in reality as well as implied in the tag line.

Understood. I am familiar with the actual issues of redlining and defecto segregation. Isabel Wilkerson's masterpiece (The Warmth of Other Suns) chronicling the migration of blacks from the South to the North in the years after WW I brought me to tears in terms of how different the history of our country could have been if not for the evil of racism and how it shaped the northern ghettos. However I wasn't aware of the specific term until fairly recently. I did a bit of T&E law and perhaps I heard it then but that seemed to be about Rockefeller, Morgan type of generational trusts skipping generations for tax purposes and not "normal" people of any color leaving money to their children when they died. Of course only the wealthiest (of any color) actually have "generational wealth" - i.e. so much assets that the capital would almost certainly not be depleted by several generations of heirs. Even the idiots like Bronfman who made a series of terrible financial decisions couldn't manage to lose it all.

I have no issues with Dorothy subsidizing Candiace. Everyone I know helps out their kids financially (and emotionally) to the best of their abilities. Lots of "middle class" people have assets which would be left to their children anyway so why not give them help when they can use it with a down payment or even more so long as they are not sacrificing their own security to have their children be able to lead a lavish life child. My wealthy friend has bought each of her daughters homes worth several million dollars - why not as the kids are going to eventually inherit lots of wealth anyway. My issue with Dorothy is that she used finances to manipulate Candiace and so the relationship was and continues to be dysfunctional. I don't blame Candiace for that since I am sure her mother did this her entire life and it would take excellent therapy by the adult child to break free of the twisted psychodynamics. My friends as well as me who received assistance from parents don't have dysfunctional relationships. The parents didn't and don't use it as some kind of leash to keep us in step. They were freely given and there is no more than the usual parental "advise" I believe that Candiace becoming economically liberated probably has changed the dynamic so both emotionally and financially Candiace is not tied to her mother's teat. I actually think that Chris and Candiace seem to have a fairly healthy relationship. I don't get any sense at all that he emotionally or physically abuses her. Of course who knows what really goes on behind closed doors for anyone but it doesn't seem like Candiace has the indicia of hanging around for abuse - Mia and Ashley are much more likely candidates for putting up with crap. And emotionally both Gizelle and Robyn seem to have damaged psyches which allow them to hang around with emotionally distant men like Juan and Jamal (and the other losers Gizelle has been involved with at least on the show). ETA - Is the term "generational wealth" one that is specific to POC? I don't mean the concept because obviously people have been leaving money to their heirs since prehistory. But it is only fairly recently that I have heard the specific phrase and it seems that it is in conjunction with POC. Completely unrelated but Our Kind of People is a show about uber wealthy black families and an "outsider" who consistently uses the "generational wealth" as a motivation for building her hair business. I know sociologically it is a huge issue in terms of the disparity between the "assets" of white folks and POC and that I have read about for many years but not the specific phraseology. I think one of the major differences among the regular middle class is home ownership since a home is probably the most valuable asset people have.

I posted it on the Mary thread as I recall. By "answering" I meant she didn't say that she wouldn't answer it so technically she "answered" the question. The issue is that the format of the reunion plus Andy's job description is not that of an investigative reporter so there are no followup questions although - again in fairness - Andy did attempt a few followups or make note of her not actually answering a question - specifically in the instance you cite about the financial records' location as well as when he told her he thought she was full of shit because she had plenty of money to move if she wanted to.

I agree about Candiace possibly having small implants but they look great on her and very natural.

Well in fairness she did actually answer every question. The issue is that Andy is not an attorney who is either deposing her or cross examining her under oath. He also isn’t a true investigative journalist who would be asking follow up questions. Erika had the advantage of knowing what questions would be asked and having attorneys and PR people carefully rehearse her. I don’t mean she was literally give the questions by Bravo but any attorney or PR crisis person would know exactly what would be asked. The problem for Erika is that she couldn’t stay on script 100% of the time and more importantly she couldn’t control her facial expressions and body language and so her vile sociopathic personality couldn’t be disguised. I think it is just a business decision to have her on for the new season. She is good for ratings and hasn’t been convicted or even indicted. She hasn’t yet failed to pay a judgment either. I don’t think pubic opinion is on her side though as I can’t remember a housewife who is more universally despised or excoriated. She has almost no defenders on any of the public forums and the occasional defenders here are such unicorns that I think most assume they are paid or otherwise have a personal agenda. She still has a lot of followers on her social media sites and seems to have fans there but who knows how many are really supporters as I am sure many people follow her for the outrage and nit to support her per se or followed her years ago and haven’t unfollowed her. At any rate, any follower is economically valuable to her as it increases the value of her hits to sponsors.

I thought Wendy's breasts looked ridiculous. Everyone was commenting during the season that they needed to settle in but it has been awhile. I have no idea why anyone who doesn't earn a living stripping would want to get such ridiculously looking breasts. I am sure all of the other woman have had breast work done - possibly not Candiace - but the rest of them just looked normally or normally voluptuous and not freakish. I actually prefer Candiace's size with her body build as I think it is really unattractive when a petite woman gets DD or larger - an example being Betheny Frankel.

Why were Jen and Stuart snowshoeing on what appeared to be grass? I thought you snowshoed in deep snow where the show shoes prevented you from sinking down into the deep snow as they distributed your weight over the top layer of snow. They could have walked on that sprinkle of packed white stuff in sneakers easily.

People always seem to forget how much money the housewives get from both the show itself (salary) plus all of the social media money that comes in. From what I read in the latest BRAVO book, the NY ladies lost $100,000 when the reunion was scrapped and I would imagine the Potomac ladies - especially the "stars" like Candiace and Gizelle get at least that much if not more. Gretchen from OC has supported herself nicely on whatever she pulls in for social media stuff. Also while Candiace is obviously the main attraction, Chris also earns his keep on the show in terms of being a supporting cast member. I don't think husbands get paid a separate pay check but a portion of whatever Candiace earns from BRAVO is really earned by Chris. Perhaps Dorothy is reacting to losing the financial power she held over Candiace when Candiace was not earning a good salary since obviously she could not afford her life style when she started the show on a hostess' earnings.

The reality is that being arrested by the Feds on financial crimes means you are guilty. There is more than 90% conviction rate in Federal Courts which is why almost everyone pleads out. I think at this point with all of the electronic data it would be impossible to prevent leaving a paper/digital trail. I understand what you are saying but I guess I am more of a bottom line person. If I were being arrested, public embarrassment would be the least of the things I was concerned about. And most jurors would not have seen the footage or else theoretically would have seen much more than a perp walk if the criminal was truly notorious in some way.

What was Jen hoping to avoid by fleeing from the bus? Was it merely her attempt to avoid being arrested on camera because it doesn't appear as if she was attempting to actually avoid arrest - not that anyone in her position would think they could actually be successful in fleeing to Maldives or some other place that has no extradition for financial crimes. The only logical thing would be for someone to head for their attorney's office so they could arrange to turn themselves in and avoid the "perp walk" - which didn't happen. I have always wondered why people are so big on avoiding the perp walk. I mean you have done something heinous and are facing huge legal bills and incredible stress and most probably time in prison and you are worried there are pictures of you being arrested?

I don't think she has any degree of self awareness - either physically or emotionally. I think she relied (or relies) on her glam squad which is why she has looked increasingly bad. I think that she was going for a Hollywood noir glam look for the reunion - like Barbara Stanwyk with the hair and the makeup. Could she possibly have looked in the mirror at that disaster of a dress and said YES - this is how I want to look for something that will be widely shown and replayed for the foreseeable future. I can't imagine most people WITHOUT stylists and looking at $200 dresses at Macy's would actually have chosen that dress for a wedding at The Cheesecake Factory.

One of the son in law worked at Girardi Keese until very recently. He left when it all started falling apart. He seemed to have a reasonably good relationship with the prior wife and was paying her $10,000 per month until recently when the financial house of cards collapsed. I am not *shocked* that Tom didn't have close relationships with the children - or at best had very transactional relationship based on need. If I had a father who married a 29 year old cocktail waitress ex-stripper who was 30 years his junior, I would not have a great deal of respect for my father to say the least.

Not just banks but good practice whenever people handle money and accounts. I worked for a company that DID NOT do this and a woman had been stealing by creating fake invoices. She wasn't that smart because people in her department were wondering how she could afford the expensive car and the designer stuff. She took a vacation and came back to police arresting her as the company did an audit while she was on vacation. I think it was a combination of COVID and Tom just becoming older and probably not as much of a rainmaker as he was. Madoff's Ponzi scheme fell apart in 2008 when the economy melted down and there was a combination of people attempting to cash out and no way to get new investors to feed the Ponzi structure.

I think Erika meant it solely in terms of financial issues because all she thinks about is money. She is the only one with money and income and she is fighting to 1) keep all of the expensive gifts and purchases from the marriage and 2) not having to return $28 million that was "loaned" to her corporation. Since Erika had no qualms about leaving her "demented" husband, I don't think she has given a second's thought to any kind of administrative burden for the brother. At any rate, I don't think the brother is really extending himself that much. He isn't a full time caretaker for the brother and has hired attorneys etc. Sure it is a bit of an administrative burden but most people wind up handling estates for their parents, spouses or even siblings. What is interesting is that none of the children seem to have stepped up in any way. Of course maybe they are but it appears they are completely out of the picture. In my experience, typically it is the children who take over and not the aged siblings.

I very much doubt that someone who ran a Ponzi scheme for 20 or so years purchased long term insurance. It would absolutely counter to the mind set of someone who thought he was essentially untouchable. He would have snorted at the idea that he would ever need $9000 per month to afford basic health care. Prudent law abiding people worry about insurance or affording retirement costs.

I think the 1960's were the time when home began having an en suite. My aunt and uncle moved into a house that was built in the late 1960's and it had an ensuite. It was a very typical ensuite for that period as it was quite small - a small stall shower, toilet and a small sink. Maids rooms that were built in the 20th century typically had a tiny ensuite. My friend bought a house with a tiny bedroom with tiny bathroom on the first floor. I had a good friend in lived in an Manhattan apartment building that was built right after WW I and it had a tiny maids room with a toilet. I am not sure it had a sink but since the room was next to the kitchen maybe she washed up in the kitchen. That was my friend's bedroom and it came in handy for smoking pot because of the double door - I had to resort to smoking in my closet

Primary is now used in the current television programs. I think master is still used by many people but it will probably be replaced as people don’t use words like crippled or retarded anymore althiugh they were commonly used in the nit so distant past.

At the beginning they explained that they had completely different schedules so that they had separate bedrooms in their previous home and would continue to do that in their new home. Makes sense to me as many couples wind up sleeping in separate rooms by default anyway although most commonly it is for snoring issues. The wealthy always had the right idea with separate bedrooms The family is Persian/Iranian. There is a large community in Los Angeles and Orange County. Master bedroom is no longer used on HH. I think it's been more than a year since it was replaced by primary bedroom.

I guess my definition of coastal is pretty specific. My parents lived in Laguna Hills but I never thought of them living in a coastal place even though they were fairly close to Laguna Beach. It took longer to find parking than to actually drive there from their home. 🤷‍♀️

Location is everything. Long Beach isn’t as desirable a location as Costa Mesa where I think they bought. I don’t think of Costa Mesa as being particularly coastal though like Newport Beach.