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Speaker 7: Let's get really real right now, Like I'm just happy
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Speaker 6: I'm just like genuinely happy.
Speaker 5: Welcome back to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk
Speaker 5: with women who have dared to pivot out of one
Speaker 5: career and into something new and explore how their personal
Speaker 5: lives impacted these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman.
Speaker 5: If you're an og Real Housewives fan, you'll know exactly
Speaker 5: who today's guest is. She went down in Bravo history
Speaker 5: for her many iconic scenes on the Real Housewives of
Speaker 5: New York. Today, I'm talking with Kelly Klaren Bensimone. When
Speaker 5: I walked into the interview with Kelly, I wasn't exactly
Speaker 5: sure what to expect with every interview. I want to
Speaker 5: be as real as possible. I mean, it saved me
Speaker 5: when I was struggling with my pivot, but I also
Speaker 5: know it's not fair to ask people to open up
Speaker 5: their stories in a way that would make them potentially
Speaker 5: feel uncomfortable. It's a tough balance at times, But with Kelly,
Speaker 5: I walked out of that interview feeling like we had
Speaker 5: a real story to tell about a real person with
Speaker 5: real experiences. I even invited her to my house for
Speaker 5: Hanukah that weekend. So when I had the chance to
Speaker 5: interview Kelly, I saw another opportunity to lift up the
Speaker 5: curtain a bit and see more than what the TV
Speaker 5: screen showed us. You will find is a refreshingly honest
Speaker 5: conversation about the life that happens behind the camera. She
Speaker 5: shares her candid reason why she went on the Housewives
Speaker 5: to begin with, and it might not be what you
Speaker 5: think how her mother's passing led to her biggest and
Speaker 5: most filling pivot and much more.
Speaker 6: My name is Kelly Colaurin Ben Simone, I'm a mother.
Speaker 5: I love that. Have you always defined yourself that way?
Speaker 6: Always?
Speaker 5: Did you think that you were going to be a parent?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 5: Was that something that was a real important priority for you?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 6: And this is so strange.
Speaker 7: You're asking that I went with my best friend to
Speaker 7: Raoul's and there's this fortune teller that's upstairs.
Speaker 6: Who like reads hands, and she's like always really spirited
Speaker 6: and fun.
Speaker 7: I was like, oh, I'll read my hand while I'm
Speaker 7: waiting for the restroom. She was like, oh, yeah, you're
Speaker 7: not going to have the life that people think you're
Speaker 7: going to have.
Speaker 6: I was like, young, what are you talking about. She's like, yeah,
Speaker 6: and kids.
Speaker 7: I don't know if you're and have kids and your
Speaker 7: life is very disjointed, she said, so. I was twenty
Speaker 7: years old when she said that. I'll never forget that.
Speaker 7: I mean, I love kids, you know, uninhibited, and you know,
Speaker 7: sweet and kind and interested and curious.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean I ask if you always thought you
Speaker 4: were going to be a parent. Using my own lens.
Speaker 5: I really didn't know if I was going to have kids.
Speaker 5: I just really didn't think about it that much. I
Speaker 5: only thought about myself in terms of my professional accomplishments
Speaker 5: and what that would look like in my life. Right.
Speaker 5: It was like a real shock to the system for
Speaker 5: me when I actually had kids.
Speaker 2: But I was.
Speaker 6: Reflecting to myself the other day about.
Speaker 5: One of the positives that they have that they've brought
Speaker 5: that I think you just touched on is that I
Speaker 5: am kind of silly at my core, and I think
Speaker 5: that as I've gotten into adulthood, I suppressed that a
Speaker 5: little more and found ways outlets like karaoke or like
Speaker 5: going out in a ways that it felt acceptable. But
Speaker 5: now that I'm around my kids all the time, I
Speaker 5: can just be silly all the time, and that's actually
Speaker 5: more natural for me.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's funny that you say that, because I have
Speaker 7: like a very serious side to me, but eighty percent
Speaker 7: of my personality is just light and like very kid friendly,
Speaker 7: I think, and you know, a lot of great things
Speaker 7: that have happened to me, like I started being very
Speaker 7: successful in philanthropy at a young age because I worked
Speaker 7: with young kids. Like kids have always really helped me
Speaker 7: to do really big things and great things.
Speaker 4: So let's go back in time. Can you paint a
Speaker 4: picture for us about child Kelly.
Speaker 6: You have siblings. I do. I have a twin brother.
Speaker 6: I have an older sister.
Speaker 7: We are very very close as brother and sister and
Speaker 7: as friends.
Speaker 6: I'm from Rockford, Illinois.
Speaker 7: I was a big swimmer. To walk to swim team
Speaker 7: practice every day, so I swam, you know, two to
Speaker 7: four hours a day, big, big swimmer, and just your
Speaker 7: typical suburban lifestyle with a lot of sports.
Speaker 6: Typically in the suburbs, you see kids like sports, sports, sports, sports.
Speaker 6: I was one of them.
Speaker 1: Kids.
Speaker 5: Many of us had our first jobs when we were
Speaker 5: in high school. Usually it was the local ice cream shop.
Speaker 5: Mine was as a camp counselor. But Kelly had a
Speaker 5: vastly different experience starting to model as just a sophomore
Speaker 5: in high school.
Speaker 7: So I started when I was fifteen, and my father
Speaker 7: knew this amazing man that worked in Chicago who was
Speaker 7: very connected in advertising, and he said, your daughtership model.
Speaker 6: And I also.
Speaker 7: Put myself into the Team Magazine contest. I had my
Speaker 7: twin brother take a photo of me and submitted myself
Speaker 7: into the contest, and I was runner.
Speaker 6: Up to Cindy Crawford.
Speaker 7: And I got this big contract with Elite, And at fifteen,
Speaker 7: I was living in New York with Stephanie Seymour. It
Speaker 7: was like my first day show up treatorns, white shorts,
Speaker 7: Polo Shum meeting Patrick Marsh He's like, oh, she's an
Speaker 7: American girl, and I was like, oh my god, this
Speaker 7: maybe the wrong outfit.
Speaker 6: She's the wrong outfit.
Speaker 7: But I wasn't thinking, like in Chicago, you just wore clothes.
Speaker 7: You didn't like have to like wear an outfit, and
Speaker 7: like in New York, and that's probably what I wear.
Speaker 7: Why I wear a lot of black today is you
Speaker 7: had to wear black top, black.
Speaker 6: Skirt and heels everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, I mean you're literally wearing that right now.
Speaker 6: I know that's obviously God really a great Oh.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's like every time I look for something, I'm
Speaker 7: like body suit, skirt, boom.
Speaker 4: What was it like moving to New York by yourself
Speaker 4: at fifteen?
Speaker 6: I mean I came to New York, and I worked
Speaker 6: in New York.
Speaker 7: But then I obviously was in high school, so I
Speaker 7: had to finish high school, and I was swimming, and
Speaker 7: obviously academics were super important to our family, and so
Speaker 7: I had to figure out how I was going to
Speaker 7: get myself into a college, all the typical things that
Speaker 7: every young adult is panic amount.
Speaker 6: I was in the same boat, except for I was modeling.
Speaker 7: So the truth of the matter is is that I
Speaker 7: wanted to go to Harvard, and I was like, I
Speaker 7: want to be a pediatric surgeon. I'm going to really
Speaker 7: go this route and I started modeling prior to that
Speaker 7: big idea in my head, and so I'm like, I'm
Speaker 7: going to apply to Harvard and I'm just going to
Speaker 7: go for it.
Speaker 6: They were like, we'd like to for you, and I
Speaker 6: was deferred me.
Speaker 5: So instead of Harvard, she pivoted to Trinity College, where
Speaker 5: her sister went.
Speaker 7: At the time, it was probably the best decision I made,
Speaker 7: because if I hadn't, if I'd taken the route to
Speaker 7: go to Harvard, like, I would never be where I
Speaker 7: am today.
Speaker 5: She was still modeling at the time, trying to make
Speaker 5: both her blossoming career and the academics work at the
Speaker 5: same time.
Speaker 6: That was an anomaly. People were not going to college
Speaker 6: and modeling.
Speaker 5: Modeling was a demanding job and not one that took
Speaker 5: place at Trinity College.
Speaker 7: Like I had to like flight a Korea, or like
Speaker 7: it was like something larger than life.
Speaker 5: Always, Kelly continued to bounce back and forth from her
Speaker 5: modeling jobs around the world and the classroom, trying to
Speaker 5: make the best of both worlds.
Speaker 7: I was like this gorgeous campus, amazing academics, like the
Speaker 7: hottest guys, fun girls, like it's so great, and then
Speaker 7: I'd be like, oh, I got to have a go
Speaker 7: hop on a train at four thirty in the morning
Speaker 7: to like model for the day, and then up got
Speaker 7: a hop back on that train at six o'clock at
Speaker 7: night so I could and study on the train so
Speaker 7: I could go to my class.
Speaker 6: I took all my classes.
Speaker 7: On Tuesdays and Thursdays so I could model Monday, Wednesdays
Speaker 7: and Friday. So I had a really kind of stressful
Speaker 7: freshman year. So after my freshman year, my dad was
Speaker 7: just like, this is like you're burning the candle at
Speaker 7: both ends. This is not working for you. My agent
Speaker 7: was like, I want you to come to Paris. So
Speaker 7: I went to Paris for a year and then I
Speaker 7: was just just like this is so great, but I've
Speaker 7: got to go. It was hard because I was never like.
Speaker 6: Immersed in something, do you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: I never felt like, Okay, like I'm really one hundred
Speaker 7: percent involved in modeling. I'm never really one hundred percent
Speaker 7: in academics. And so I went back home to Rockford
Speaker 7: and I was modeling in Chicago, and then an agent
Speaker 7: came and she was like, what are you doing here?
Speaker 7: Like at home, She's like why, Like, I'm just modeling
Speaker 7: in Chicago. I wasn't even in college at the time.
Speaker 7: She was like, no, no, no, You're coming to New York.
Speaker 7: And the next day I got a job for American
Speaker 7: Vogue and then a big job in Germany, and my
Speaker 7: life totally changed.
Speaker 5: How did you do that? I mean you were young,
Speaker 5: but how did.
Speaker 6: You power through that? Didn't? Didn't?
Speaker 7: I was exhausted all the time. People talk about issues
Speaker 7: with eating, It's just like it can be really dark.
Speaker 7: It's a dark, dark, dark path to go down. And
Speaker 7: I had to do things that created a structure for
Speaker 7: me so that I could work, but I also needed
Speaker 7: to be thin to work. And when I look back,
Speaker 7: I was like my body was starving, and so I
Speaker 7: was like holding on to anything that I kind of get,
Speaker 7: whether that was like latte, milk, whatever it was. Yeah,
Speaker 7: it was the height of the supermodel. The industry lends
Speaker 7: itself to like tall, thin people.
Speaker 6: I mean you were literally a hangar. I mean, let's
Speaker 6: be totally honest about it.
Speaker 7: You have to wear the clothes, and so some people
Speaker 7: were just genetically tall and thin. I mean I am
Speaker 7: tall and slender, but I'm not skinny.
Speaker 4: Do you think the industry has gotten better?
Speaker 7: Oh, totally. It's changed so much. I would love to
Speaker 7: be modeling right now. I'd be like, yes, I'm like fine,
Speaker 7: I'm fine.
Speaker 5: Like I was like, this is great. She was modeling
Speaker 5: at the height of the supermodel and eventually decided to
Speaker 5: put a pause on college. So she picked up and
Speaker 5: moved to New York City.
Speaker 7: Got an apartment and was really laser focused on only modeling.
Speaker 6: And my dad was freaking out. He's like, but you
Speaker 6: have to go to college. And I was like, okay, fine, one,
Speaker 6: I'm twenty five, I'll go back to college.
Speaker 7: And so I literally called the Dina students at Columbia University.
Speaker 7: I was like, oh, I'd like to have a conversation
Speaker 7: with you. Because there was no cell phones, there was
Speaker 7: no emails. So I called him and I made an
Speaker 7: appointment and I just was like, if you give me
Speaker 7: a chance, I promise you you will not regret it.
Speaker 5: But before she phoned up Columbia and eventually attended the school,
Speaker 5: she was at the peak of her career, jet setting
Speaker 5: around the world.
Speaker 6: And it was a different time too.
Speaker 7: It's like when I was modeling, you know, now one's like,
Speaker 7: oh Europe.
Speaker 6: You know, everything is more global.
Speaker 7: The models that worked in New York didn't work in Europe,
Speaker 7: and so for me to want to work in Europe,
Speaker 7: it's like the big deal.
Speaker 6: They were like no, no, no, no.
Speaker 7: But I was doing so well and I was seeing that,
Speaker 7: like the photographers were going back and forth, so I
Speaker 7: wanted to go back.
Speaker 6: And forth with them.
Speaker 5: That's when she met her ex husband, the famous photographer
Speaker 5: Jill ben Simone.
Speaker 7: I met him and he was like, oh my god,
Speaker 7: like who is this person. So we went on a
Speaker 7: trip and Veronica Web was like, he really likes you.
Speaker 7: You should date him. And I'm like what, And I
Speaker 7: just broke up with my boyfriend, like literally the day before,
Speaker 7: and I was like, mmm, I don't know.
Speaker 6: The one thing that I just was and still to
Speaker 6: this day, that I.
Speaker 7: Just adore about him is at his incredible creative mind.
Speaker 7: I remember sitting behind him, looking over his shoulder and
Speaker 7: him drawing these circles, and I was just so enamored
Speaker 7: by the way and like the lightness of his hands,
Speaker 7: the way he threw these circles was beautiful, It's poetic.
Speaker 7: I was like, oh my god, this is amazing. I
Speaker 7: was so enamored with so many things that most people
Speaker 7: wouldn't think.
Speaker 6: So we married three years after.
Speaker 5: Were you worried about having kids in a modeling career?
Speaker 5: Was that something that was done at the time. Did
Speaker 5: you have mentors to help you through it.
Speaker 7: Once I actually met my ex husband and my life changed.
Speaker 7: I'd met him, I was going back to college. My
Speaker 7: life was more controlled, so you know, I didn't know
Speaker 7: where I was had. I had a great mentor at
Speaker 7: Columbia who I started was taking all these writing classes
Speaker 7: because I'd been writing journals before, and the dean was like,
Speaker 7: you should really start with writing because you've been journaling
Speaker 7: like all this time. So I started with that. I
Speaker 7: met this amazing mentor who was incredible poet, Alan Ziegler.
Speaker 7: He really kind of pushed me because he was like,
Speaker 7: you have to make a decision. Are you going to model?
Speaker 6: Are you going to be a student.
Speaker 5: Despite her almost decade long career, at this point, Kelly
Speaker 5: was still incredibly young, caught between Colombia and the sparkle
Speaker 5: of the fashion industry. She found the perfect opportunity to
Speaker 5: bridge that divide a newly created digital column for Elle magazine.
Speaker 7: Jeane Godfrey June was starting a new platform called ll
Speaker 7: dot com, and she was like, I need writers. She
Speaker 7: was like, tell me your story. So I became one
Speaker 7: of the first bloggers on l dot com.
Speaker 4: What were you writing for them?
Speaker 7: This narrative about modeling and my adventures as a model.
Speaker 6: It was basically like adventures with Kelly.
Speaker 7: How I was modeling, who I was modeling with, where
Speaker 7: I was modeling, which kind of like forecasted what I
Speaker 7: was doing for page six because.
Speaker 5: That was kind of the beginning of like the behind
Speaker 5: the scene. It's like, tell us the story because it
Speaker 5: looked so glamorous and it was like the behind the scene, right,
Speaker 5: and she.
Speaker 6: Would like send me everywhere where. I would be like.
Speaker 7: Going to the spa, and then they'd be taking picture
Speaker 7: of me at the spa and that would be writing
Speaker 7: about it, which was unusual because usually it was a model.
Speaker 7: But I was like a twofer right right, sound Kelly?
Speaker 5: Did that feel like a comfortable place to then actually
Speaker 5: begin having kids? Balancing?
Speaker 4: How did you figure that piece out just one day?
Speaker 6: I just was pregnant. I didn't.
Speaker 7: It wasn't like I was like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 7: going to plan for this. I just was pregnant and
Speaker 7: I panicked. I'm not going to lie, but.
Speaker 6: I'm like, what am I going to do? Who am
Speaker 6: I going to be? My ex husband as creative as amazing,
Speaker 6: easy is I think he was never there. I was
Speaker 6: with myself.
Speaker 5: Still, she forged ahead, committed to creating a strong framework
Speaker 5: for her children.
Speaker 7: I did what I always did, just put my head
Speaker 7: down and just focused on what I was doing. I
Speaker 7: always talk about focusing on the task at hand, and
Speaker 7: I was just like, Okay, here's my child.
Speaker 6: But actually being a mother is a totally different situation.
Speaker 6: You are nurturing and raising them and creating a framework
Speaker 6: for them. And that was what scared me because I'm
Speaker 6: just like, wait a minute, Like I'm having a hard
Speaker 6: time figuring navigating my own world, let alone, Like now
Speaker 6: I have to raise two girls. And I have great
Speaker 6: parents and I'm grateful for everything that they've done for me,
Speaker 6: but I'm raising my own kids.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: How did you have enough confidence in yourself?
Speaker 5: As I guess the question I'm trying to ask, to
Speaker 5: be confident to do it differently than what other people
Speaker 5: had done.
Speaker 7: Because I was by myself. No one of my friends
Speaker 7: were having children. I didn't know anyone that had a child.
Speaker 7: I just was doing my things on my own way. Yeah,
Speaker 7: and I would listen to what they were doing. They
Speaker 7: had like amazing nannies, and I was always like listening
Speaker 7: to what they were doing.
Speaker 6: At the end of the day, I was just always
Speaker 6: just doing things my way.
Speaker 5: Like so many women I know, Kelly did what she
Speaker 5: needed to do. She took her daughter everywhere so she
Speaker 5: could continue to work.
Speaker 7: Brought my daughter with me, my oldest daughter with me
Speaker 7: absolutely everywhere she traveled her. She went to Hawaii, she
Speaker 7: went everywhere, in Paris, she went all of the place.
Speaker 6: I brought her literally everywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: That was, I mean amazing, but also really stressful. I
Speaker 7: didn't sleep for the first like, you know, seven years
Speaker 7: of kids. But yeah, I mean just did it. I
Speaker 7: didn't think twice. This is like the beginning of when
Speaker 7: women were really really traveling and working and raising kids.
Speaker 5: So the marriage dissolved, right, but you ended up living
Speaker 5: next door to your ex husband.
Speaker 6: That is unusual, Yes, highly Yeah, how did that come about?
Speaker 7: Well, just because you know he's older, did he do
Speaker 7: right by me in a lot of ways? Not necessarily,
Speaker 7: But at the end of the day, he's the father
Speaker 7: of my children, and so I do have a lot
Speaker 7: of respect for who he is and the role that
Speaker 7: he plays for my girls. And I tell him all
Speaker 7: the time, I'm like, you have to remember every single
Speaker 7: thing that you say and do. My girls are going
Speaker 7: to look for men like you.
Speaker 5: That's such a poignant way to think about it. I
Speaker 5: think it really puts the responsibibility back on the men,
Speaker 5: not just to say like they're watching, they're watching you,
Speaker 5: but like to really make it.
Speaker 6: So congruent they're watching you, they're watching.
Speaker 5: And they're internalizing the way you.
Speaker 6: Speak to them. You know, what you do, how you
Speaker 6: do things.
Speaker 5: With the new Real Housewives of New York legacy and
Speaker 5: the new new cast of Real Housewives of New York happening,
Speaker 5: how one gets cast is always a swirl of gossip
Speaker 5: and some mystery. So what made Kelly the right candidate
Speaker 5: and fit for a show like Real Housewives of New York.
Speaker 5: She had an ever changing path from Trinity College to modeling,
Speaker 5: to Columbia to writing, to marriage and of course motherhood.
Speaker 6: So let's let's get really real right now.
Speaker 7: Like two thousand and eight was a very very big year,
Speaker 7: not just for me but for a lot of people.
Speaker 8: Lehman Brothers is going bankrupt and financial markets from Asia
Speaker 8: to Europe are doing their utmost to prevent Monday from
Speaker 8: turning from dark to black.
Speaker 9: So I think this is the most significant financial crisis
Speaker 9: in the post war period.
Speaker 6: There are fears that selloff will continue on Wall.
Speaker 1: Street, soaring gas prices, falling home prices, and rising unemployed.
Speaker 6: What the heck is going on down here?
Speaker 7: I had just gotten divorced, left l accessories, was trying
Speaker 7: to figure out what I was going to do next.
Speaker 7: I wasn't modeling at the time, and came and.
Speaker 6: I lost absolutely everything. So we're two thousand and eight,
Speaker 6: I have no money, I.
Speaker 7: Have two kids, trying to figure out how I'm going
Speaker 7: to provide for them and give them the education and
Speaker 7: the framework that they deserve.
Speaker 6: Every child deserves that. And I just wanted to make
Speaker 6: sure that my girls.
Speaker 7: Had absolutely everything, not product bags, not bullshit, but like
Speaker 7: absolutely every single tool in their tool belt so that
Speaker 7: they could be successful, because that's.
Speaker 6: Our job as parents.
Speaker 7: Our job is to create a framework so that our
Speaker 7: children are going to be successful and better than us
Speaker 7: because there are a legacy.
Speaker 6: So that was very, very very stressful.
Speaker 7: So you know, here I am thirty six years old,
Speaker 7: like what am I going to do with my life?
Speaker 7: What's happening with me? And I decided to go on
Speaker 7: Housewives not because I thought it would be a good idea.
Speaker 7: Decided to go on Housewives because I was like, I
Speaker 7: need something new. I can't live in this microbubble of
Speaker 7: New York of l and my ex husband and I
Speaker 7: became the provider and the nurturer like literally overnight. And
Speaker 7: you know, the people that I've known for a long time,
Speaker 7: some of them really weren't there for me. My best
Speaker 7: friend like moved to Sweden, like oh, I was like
Speaker 7: wait a minute, like you know, I need your help.
Speaker 7: And so it's really really difficult to be trying to control.
Speaker 6: I wasn't doing anything.
Speaker 7: That was like larger than life, that could really like
Speaker 7: pivot me into something else. So that's why I went
Speaker 7: onto Housewives. And it was the best thing.
Speaker 6: It was the best thing that I had ever done,
Speaker 6: but it was so stressful.
Speaker 7: In the American dream, one mistake at a time, create
Speaker 7: a great life, and I love living in the most
Speaker 7: interesting people make the best headlines.
Speaker 5: What was your mindset going in?
Speaker 7: I was supposed to be another show with Tim Gunn
Speaker 7: before there was Project Runway. Tim used to have all
Speaker 7: these different editors and designers come into persons and judge
Speaker 7: all the students. So I met so many great designers
Speaker 7: from that. And then he'd created Project Runway, and so
Speaker 7: they wanted me to do something with him, and then
Speaker 7: they chose Veronica. Webin said love her. Then the e
Speaker 7: Exit producers sat.
Speaker 6: Down with me.
Speaker 7: He was like, you were just so spirit and you
Speaker 7: have such a good personality, and you've done a lot
Speaker 7: of things in your life.
Speaker 6: We would love to have you on the show.
Speaker 5: So Kelly joined the show among now household names like
Speaker 5: Bethany Frankel and Ramona Singer. She joined the cast when
Speaker 5: reality TV was a new frontier and no one knew
Speaker 5: how a producer edit could change the script. Well, Kelly's
Speaker 5: time on Real Housewives of New York was pretty short.
Speaker 5: She made the most of it.
Speaker 7: Reality TV is amazing though, Really TV's over the top,
Speaker 7: just like modeling.
Speaker 5: So when you went on the show, where was the
Speaker 5: point you actually kept pretty serious boundaries around privacy Considering
Speaker 5: that you were on a show that was about opening
Speaker 5: up your personal life, right, how did you manage that
Speaker 5: they didn't really.
Speaker 7: Want to fill my personal life? Actually, do you want
Speaker 7: to come to this part. Now do you want to
Speaker 7: come to that note? Do you want to do this note?
Speaker 7: They didn't want to do it. They just wanted to
Speaker 7: see me interact.
Speaker 6: So it was just like.
Speaker 7: Every single time I walked I opened the door, it
Speaker 7: was like an opportunity for them to go wild.
Speaker 6: And that was great. It was great?
Speaker 4: Was it great? I mean?
Speaker 9: Did it for me?
Speaker 5: I mean, I know you said you felt like you
Speaker 5: were you were filling a role for them. At what
Speaker 5: point did you feel like you were or were not
Speaker 5: in control of your storyline.
Speaker 7: I wasn't in control of my storyline. I would just
Speaker 7: come in and just see what was going to happen.
Speaker 7: And I remember them asking me questions about other women.
Speaker 7: I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Like,
Speaker 7: I have no idea that these people are.
Speaker 5: I didn't.
Speaker 6: I had no idea where they were.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: He was like, what are your thoughts about so and so?
Speaker 7: I'm like, I really don't have thoughts about her because
Speaker 7: I met her for twenty seconds. But sometimes you just
Speaker 7: don't know people and then there's an organic connection. Sometimes
Speaker 7: it's just not yeah, and that's not good or bad,
Speaker 7: it's just real.
Speaker 4: Why did you decide to keep doing it, and it
Speaker 4: was really good for my business.
Speaker 7: And I was asked me on the cut a Playboy
Speaker 7: and that's really why I continued my second season. David Pecker,
Speaker 7: who was my boss at EL bought American Media and
Speaker 7: he bought Playboy and put me on the cover, which
Speaker 7: was a total anomally. It was turning forty.
Speaker 5: She did the cover in an effort to reclaim her storyline.
Speaker 5: She went back for her second season and could never
Speaker 5: quite shake Reality TV. She left the Real Housewives franchise
Speaker 5: in twenty eleven and later joined Million Dollar Listing after
Speaker 5: getting her real estate license and joining the renowned Douglas
Speaker 5: Ellman firm in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 7: Well, especially a million dollar Listing filming with Frederick and
Speaker 7: just having him just give me that massive stamp of approval.
Speaker 6: And just saying, like, you guys don't know who she is.
Speaker 7: She's a major broker in New York and has this
Speaker 7: huge team and is going to kill it. Just literally
Speaker 7: just set the stage for my actual with my career today.
Speaker 6: Literally three reasons that you should use me as a
Speaker 6: real estate broker.
Speaker 7: One I maximize your value, Two I maximize expos sure,
Speaker 7: and three I maximized transparency, which means I tell you
Speaker 7: everything about your deal and I bring you the best
Speaker 7: of the best to make you a deal actually happened, and.
Speaker 5: Her successful shift into real estate earned her the number
Speaker 5: one deal during COVID for forty two million dollars. But
Speaker 5: despite her new success, real estate was never the plan.
Speaker 5: It took the passing of her mother to push her
Speaker 5: into it.
Speaker 7: So my mother asked me to sell my family home.
Speaker 7: And I basically didn't want anyone to know what I
Speaker 7: was doing, and so I drove to it.
Speaker 5: Why didn't you want any to know what you were doing?
Speaker 6: Because I know I'm in this business. In reality, people
Speaker 6: are like, oh my god, I saw her on the street.
Speaker 6: What she doing. I didn't want to, like shoot my
Speaker 6: own horn.
Speaker 7: I was doing something for the right reasons, and I
Speaker 7: didn't want to promote it. In reality, everyone always wants
Speaker 7: to promote stuff, which is great for them.
Speaker 6: But this was my.
Speaker 7: Real reality, and I needed to make sure that I
Speaker 7: was getting my license and I was taking care of business.
Speaker 6: And so I drove.
Speaker 7: To Brooklyn every single day and I took the test
Speaker 7: and then I organized it. So it was like the
Speaker 7: two weeks I took the test, and then on the Monday,
Speaker 7: I took the state test, and so there was no
Speaker 7: room for error because I had to start getting things going.
Speaker 6: But she is the reason that I'm in real estate.
Speaker 6: I mean, her passing.
Speaker 7: And her actively forcing me to sell my family's portfolio
Speaker 7: is the reason that I'm licensed in New York, that
Speaker 7: I'm licensed in Florida, that I'm licensed in the Hampton's,
Speaker 7: I'm going to be licensed in Aspen.
Speaker 6: I mean, she held my hands so.
Speaker 7: Hard I thought she was gonna break my hand off.
Speaker 7: She was like, you need to help your father sell
Speaker 7: these properties.
Speaker 5: Were you able to get your license and take care
Speaker 5: of it before she passed?
Speaker 7: Yes, she said, no, no, no, no, no, no, she
Speaker 7: passed before she passed before she passed really quickly.
Speaker 6: My mother had pancreatic cancer and we found out in
Speaker 6: March and she passed.
Speaker 5: By August, so that's a really quick one. It's just
Speaker 5: it's hard. I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 6: It was very tough, especially the relationship that we had.
Speaker 6: It's really tough.
Speaker 4: Where do you think you're going next.
Speaker 7: I'm just so excited about what my girls are doing,
Speaker 7: you know. It's like, I love my team. I love
Speaker 7: Doug as Almon. You know, I love real estate, but
Speaker 7: I'm just like happy, you know, like for the first
Speaker 7: time in my life.
Speaker 2: Great, so.
Speaker 6: I don't feel the same stress.
Speaker 10: And it's like I know that this will resonate with
Speaker 10: a lot of women, because whether you're sixteen to have
Speaker 10: a child or you're forty year of a child, it's like,
Speaker 10: you know, bringing children into this world, it's a huge
Speaker 10: responsibility and I take it really seriously, and I know
Speaker 10: a lot of women do too.
Speaker 9: You know, my parents gave up a lot for me.
Speaker 9: I've given up a lot for my kids, and I'm
Speaker 9: just happy to be where I am today. I'm just
Speaker 9: like genuinely happy, and I'm.
Speaker 7: Just excited to see what's going to happen and like
Speaker 7: how my life is going to up and just being able.
Speaker 6: To like Douglas Alm has just been incredible. They just
Speaker 6: like see who I am and they're like, we love
Speaker 6: who you are. You're a supermodel, You're a superstar. We
Speaker 6: just love it.
Speaker 7: And it's just like I just feel like I'm in
Speaker 7: a position right now where I'm really shining and all
Speaker 7: the things that I've done throughout my life, like I'm
Speaker 7: putting into my career and it's working and it's just great.
Speaker 6: And I have a great team.
Speaker 7: My kids are healthy, and my ex husband is healthy,
Speaker 7: and I have a quick boyfriend, and I just.
Speaker 6: Feel very, very lucky to be where I am today.
Speaker 6: And like people, you know, they see you on TV
Speaker 6: and they're like, you know, honestly.
Speaker 7: Like TV's changed. And when I was on television, like
Speaker 7: I don't want to talk about what was going on
Speaker 7: with me because the noise was so loud no one
Speaker 7: could hear my voice. And maybe at that time that
Speaker 7: my story wasn't interesting enough. It was a different time.
Speaker 7: People weren't really concerned about what was happening being you know,
Speaker 7: with people with like not having money, all those big, big,
Speaker 7: big concerns. People weren't didn't want to hear about it
Speaker 7: because they were dealing with every single day. Right, so
Speaker 7: they're what They're going to see some tall brunette now
Speaker 7: blonde standing there just being like.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, poor me. It's like the cheerleader. It's like,
Speaker 6: oh my god, I'm so sad. I wasn't so sad,
Speaker 6: it was really scared.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 5: I asked this question of all of my guests, is
Speaker 5: there something in your life that you felt like at
Speaker 5: the time felt really negative and now in retrospect was
Speaker 5: a big positive.
Speaker 6: Yeah, two thousand and eight just negative for everybody. It
Speaker 6: was a shitty time. Market collapsed, so did lives. But
Speaker 6: it's not like what happens to you, and that's whatever
Speaker 6: all my mentors say. They're like, it doesn't matter what's
Speaker 6: happening to you. It's how you overcome it. It's like
Speaker 6: how you take that next step.
Speaker 7: And I mean, every single human is going to have
Speaker 7: adversity in their life and it's just really what you
Speaker 7: do and how you what next step you take.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Kelly.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for joining us with you so much.
Speaker 5: So great to have you on. Thank you. Kelly still
Speaker 5: lives in New York City with her two daughters. You
Speaker 5: might see her in the Douglas Element real estate magazines
Speaker 5: are running through the streets of the city. Kelly continues
Speaker 5: to write and connect with her fans through TikTok and more.
Speaker 5: You can find her seven books wherever you get your books,
Speaker 5: and follow her online at Kelly Bensimone. She pivots is
Speaker 5: an amazing community of women understand that personal is the professional.
Speaker 5: Join the community on Instagram at she Pivots. The podcast
Speaker 5: a special thank you to our partner Marie Clair and
Speaker 5: the team that made this episode possible. Talk to you
Speaker 5: next week. She Pivots is hosted by me Emily Tish Sussman,
Speaker 5: produced by Emily Eda Voloshik, with sound editing and mixing
Speaker 5: from Nina Pollock and research and planning from Christine Dickinson
Speaker 5: and Hannah Cousins.
Speaker 3: I endorse che Pivots.
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