Countess Luann Will Drink You Beneath the Desk

Luann de Lesseps, 61, ex–Actual Housewife of New York, cabaret star, divorcée, trilingual mom of two, former mannequin and Connecticut nurse, and dance-pop sensation, seems on the Paris Theater simply because the solar emerges in an appropriately yellow halter robe and big Chanel sun shades. “My girlfriend owns the seventeenth flooring,” she says, pointing to the Plaza Resort. Will probably be the primary of many occasions all through this August night that the countess, who was married to Rely Alexandre de Lesseps for 16 years within the ’90s and aughts and nonetheless makes use of the title publicly and professionally, will point out her fabulous and rich buddies. Identify-drops embody Tilda Swinton, whose household’s Scottish property the countess has stayed in; Liza Minnelli, whose celebration she attended ten years in the past; Candace Bushnell, who’s one in every of her greatest buddies; numerous artwork sellers; and the litany of celebrities who’ve graced her cabaret stage, Rachel Dratch, Lance Bass, and Bridget Everett amongst them. Most ladies in such circles (or most individuals typically) wouldn’t deign to drink the water flowing into the basin of an enormous New York Metropolis fountain, however inside 5 minutes of our picture shoot, the countess has already executed so and spit some on the digital camera. “Get it, Lu!” a 20-something lady in athleisure yells as de Lesseps poses with a cigarette subsequent to the subway steps. The lady turns her digital camera round to indicate us that she’s presently FaceTiming her mom — each are longtime followers. “I’ll see you at my present December fifth!” replies the countess, her signature line every time a fan asks to take a selfie. “We have already got tickets!” she calls again.

The New York Housewives have at all times had a singular grit: They star in a franchise that has traditionally centered ladies of a barely older age than different Actual Housewives offshoots, ladies who had already lived fabulous lives earlier than social media made individuals terrified to have an excessive amount of enjoyable. Over her 13 seasons on The Actual Housewives of New York Metropolis, the countess has drunkenly fallen right into a bush, was caught on mic mendacity to her then-boyfriend about inviting a person again to her trip home, divorced twice, and was among the many first forged members to launch a dance single, all whereas sustaining a scrumptious obliviousness to how others understand her frequent pontifications on correct etiquette. (Her tagline the primary three seasons: “I by no means really feel responsible about being privileged.”) Although she left the present when Bravo recast the sequence after a rocky 2021 season, she stars in The Actual Housewives Final Ladies Journey: Roaring twentieth, a city-hopping celebration of 20 years of the present; later this 12 months, she shall be in The Golden Life with 4 different former New York Housewives, filming between Palm Seashore and the Hamptons. Within the Ladies Journey premiere, Kyle Richards remarks that in her 15 years on The Actual Housewives of Beverly Hills, not one in every of her castmates ever met a man whereas out and introduced him again to the place they have been staying. The countess replies blithely, “We’re New York Metropolis ladies.”

We’re now within the foyer of the St. Regis consuming de Lesseps’s most popular martini: gin, shaken, very chilly, with a twist, although she swears the glasses right here was once larger. “Earlier than, they have been like swimming swimming pools,” she tells the server. He claims the outdated ones have been really the identical measurement; the countess is skeptical. Although she has been to rehab twice, was arrested in 2017 for disorderly intoxication and battery of a police officer, and was sober for 2 years throughout COVID, de Lesseps has stated she doesn’t take into account herself an alcoholic. “I’ve realized the way to stability my consuming,” she instructed Us Weekly final 12 months.

Over a second spherical of martinis, we focus on the prevalence of outdated RHONY towards its contemporaries (“We did extra in per week than they do in the entire season”), how she feels about her buddy Jill Zarin getting lower from The Golden Life after her racist remarks about Unhealthy Bunny’s Tremendous Bowl halftime efficiency (“Not effectively, bitch,” she says, quoting her former co-star Dorinda Medley), the brand new tune she has popping out within the fall (“Wait until you see this music video”), and older males (“My buddy is courting an 86-year-old. Stunning man, and he adores her. No intercourse. He loves to buy her. Solely the best shops”).

Past fancy buddies and connections to well-known individuals, what the countess has most of all is recreation. Watching de Lesseps work together with a person is like watching Jalen Brunson play basketball or Mariah Carey hit a whistle be aware. It’s the expertise of seeing somebody excel at precisely what they have been placed on earth to do. And the countess, who’s five-foot-ten, all cheekbones and jaw, and speaks like a cartoon vixen in each her gravelly cadence and the regularity with which she says phrases like dahhling, is born for this. Throughout the room is a bunch of three older businessmen; would she ever strategy them? She dismisses this instantly. “They’re too outdated, they usually’re not trying that effectively,” she says. “You recognize what you may inform a few man? His footwear. If he’s bought good footwear, that’s the place you go.” She factors to a good-looking stranger sitting alone: “It’s really easy. You simply go and sit down and say, ‘I discover you fairly hanging.’ It’s important to hold it elegant. ‘The place are you from?’ Not ‘What do you do?’ That’s vulgar and never stylish.” However as quickly as she readies herself to go over to him, his buddy seems, ruining the vibe. If she have been to hit on somebody, she’d do it like this: “You’re at a bar with ladies, having a very good time, and there’s a pretty boy on the bar who’s seeking to have some enjoyable. He’s not wanting to come back to the desk as a result of it’s too nerve-racking with 5 ladies. When you go there, it seems low-cost. That’s whenever you interact the waiter,” she says, pausing for impact. “It’s a be aware that claims ‘Please come and be a part of us for a drink at our desk.’ How sizzling is that?”

Any flirting the countess does tonight will largely be for my profit. She is in a dedicated monogamous relationship with real-estate agent Michael Riemerschmid, whom she met three years in the past within the Hamptons. “I used to be out with a man who’s homosexual however presents as straight, which is a superb wingman,” she says. “I stroll into the American Resort, and I see his face, and that was it.” The issue was that he was married on the time — “an sad marriage,” she clarifies. “Married 26 years; he’s that type of man. He stayed. And naturally he fucked round on the facet. So I stated to him, ‘I’m a public particular person. I can’t date a married man. I simply can’t. So bye-bye!’” she says, laughing. “He was divorced six months later. When the prepare comes, soar on.” She had already agreed to leap on one other prepare, nevertheless: Bravo’s Love Resort, the 2025 sequence wherein 4 single Actual Housewives sought silver foxes at a resort in Cabo. Riemerschmid was not thrilled. “He didn’t prefer it very a lot, but it surely’s TV. I needed to carry on tv as a result of the Housewives had ended for me 4 years in the past.”

In between stints on different sequence just like the spinoff Luann & Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake, wherein she and co-star Sonja Morgan try and revitalize a depressed Illinois city, the countess has cabaret. What began as an thought for a spread present about her life in late 2017 grew to become a bawdy, self-deprecating song-and-dance extravaganza following her arrest that Christmas Eve. Her first present, #CountessAndFriends, premiered in February 2018. “Thank God for cabaret, as a result of I misplaced a very good paycheck,” she says. She has dates within the fall and winter in North America and Europe together with her newest present, wherein she shares tales about her romantic escapades: “It’s all about love gained and love misplaced.” On nights off, “I hang around with the band and we go to dive bars. I’ve three straight boys and three homosexual boys. It’s like The Brady Bunch and I’m Florence Henderson,” she says, laughing, then stops. “Let me write that down as a result of I can use it in my cabaret present.” She takes out her cellphone and dictates a textual content message to herself, one thing she does at a number of different moments all through the night in order that she will be able to reuse her quips onstage. (One other frequent Luannism: breaking into tune mid-conversation.) She recollects when fellow forged member and frenemy Bethenny Frankel as soon as yelled at her, “Life just isn’t a cabaret!” “I’m like, ‘Possibly your life just isn’t a fucking cabaret, however mine is.’”

After our first two rounds, we make our option to the King Cole Bar, the livelier part of the St. Regis, the place de Lesseps plops straight in between two males on the bar. She’s telling me concerning the artwork of seduction, platonic and in any other case. “It’s not about intercourse or males or companions; it’s simply individuals which might be essential to you, individuals you respect, whether or not that’s the waiter or the fucking mayor of Dublin,” she says. I ask if she actually did seduce the mayor of Dublin; she replies with a cryptic “Properly, sure!”

We order much more martinis. “Woman, I drink anybody underneath the desk,” she says. Even whereas wasted, nevertheless, the countess stays the countess. “Whose purse is that?” she says, pointing to somebody’s bag. “It doesn’t belong on the desk. We don’t put our purses on the desk.” The variety of I like yous and babes and bitches going across the desk at this hour is astonishing. Earlier than we go exterior to smoke a cigarette, I ask if she thinks we’re allowed to convey our cocktails with us. “Don’t ask. By no means,” she warns me. We share one, and I ask her what query she needs she was requested extra. I imply it in a journalistic approach, however her reply is “Will you marry me?” “I’m a hopeless romantic!” she says. I ask if she’s into manifesting, and he or she tells me that she’s very into the wellness creator Joe Dispenza and that she as soon as meditated for eight hours a day at one in every of his retreats.

Again inside, our photographer publicizes she has just one shot left in her movie roll and tells de Lesseps she will be able to determine how she needs to make use of it. Naturally, de Lesseps chooses to strategy the boys and ask them in the event that they’d prefer to be in it. The ensuing shot is of her sitting on the ground of the bar, flanked by the 2 guys in high-top chairs. Considered one of them simply went to Berghain for the primary time. “Willkommen!” she says after which begins to sing the opening traces of the one reference that might happen to de Lesseps with regards to a Berlin nightclub. “What good is sitting alone in your room?” she belts in her greatest Liza impression. “Come hear the muuuu-sic play!”

The subsequent night, I bump into just-taken images of the countess trying radiant in a hot-pink jumpsuit with out even a touch of the hangover terrorizing my very own physique. She was attending a celebration, after all.

Manufacturing Credit

Pictures by
Luisa Opalesky

Motion path by
Ash Rucker

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When you want to learn in print, you can too discover this text within the August 10, 2026, concern of
New York Journal.

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When you want to learn in print, you can too discover this text within the August 10, 2026, concern of
New York Journal.

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