I have seen the episode. Most of my experience with the Real Housewives shows is just from the advertisements. I saw one of the Orange County ones and one of the New York ones. The ones I’ve seen all follow the formula of a bunch of wealthy, overly-plastically surgeoned, gold-diggers/heiresses getting together for some type of party and getting into a big cat fight. I’m guessing the shows typically have an “evil” housewife, a “good” or “leader” housewife and at least one housewife caught in the middle, and that the “evil” housewife tends to get the most publicity. I’m not sure how “real” the show is, but the few I’ve seen seem to take a script from a professional wrestling match.
So what is really going on here?
We have Camille Donatacci-Grammer, known for appearing on Club MTV, in Playboy (although apparently in lingerie), and nude in several movies. She had recently divorced the actor Kelsey Grammer after his notorious cheating ways got his girlfriend pregnant. So Camille is probably none to happy with Kelsey.
Camille also has some sort of beef with Kyle (who appeared on the show “ER” and on the reality shows of her niece, Paris Hilton, and who’s sister, Kim, a Disney child star in the 1970s, is also on the show), but invites all the housewives over for a party. She also invites her friends Dedra (her hairdresser) and of course the infamous psychic medium Allison DuBois, who talks to dead people, foresees events, and witnesses past events in her dreams. They mention several times on the show, and on Camille’s blog, that Allison is the basis of the TV show “Medium”. Camille and the producers of the show really hammer this fact home. The TV show “Medium” is produced by Gramment Productions, which is Kelsey Grammer’s production studio, and the show was cancelled by CBS several months ago. And Allison starts her U.S. tour in March.
Camille invites a surprised Kyle to the party, but Kyle already had plans with Faye Resnick, who was notoriously friends with Nicole Brown Simpson who was murdered in 1994 by the real murderer (not O.J. Simpson) and later wrote some books about the murder and appeared in Playboy in 1997. So It’s OK if Kyle brings Faye along.
Now that we have the fight lined up with an-all-former-D-list cast of TV and soft-porn celebrities, it’s time to set up the fight. Camille makes sure that everybody understands that Allison is just a friend and isn’t there to do readings, but when she drinks a bit she does really, really get visions and sometimes hits below the belt. With the obvious tension between her and Kyle, she of course serves up absurdly huge and absurdly strong martinis. We don’t see how much Allison drinks (and I don't think she was very drunk at all), but at one point after the brawl gets going Camille appears to mention something about cutting her off as she pulls away her martini glass (while she appears to be glancing into the camera to make sure her action is in the shot).
Camille climbs the ropes and lands the first diving crossbody on Faye saying, “Who are you? You look familiar…Oh yeah, you were in Playboy shortly after the O.J. Simpson trial.” So apparently Camille is not only a regular reader of Playboy, but also happens to be able to remember random pictorials from 13 years ago. (Not even I can do that. I associated the name Faye Resnik vaguely with the O.J. trial, but I would not have recognized her or even remembered she was in Playboy, although I’m sure I saw the pictorial). Camille makes some off-camera comment about how crude Faye is, although she appeared in Playboy (although she says only in lingerie) and nude in films including soft-core porn. So it’s an obvious body slam.
But Camille doesn’t want to come off as the evil one, so she tags up with Allison. Allison jumps in as the Wicked Medium of the West and starts puffing about on her prop electric cigarette (just to look more evil, I guess?). Allison has been saying how it is a weekend and a girls' night out and they are al pretty alpha females and should be “bad girls”.
Kyle tags up with Faye and flies off the ropes for a closeline on Allison asking for a reading, but Allison dodges with a refusal. But Kyle again springboards back with another request, but Allison has already moved to the corner and pounces with a forward somersault three-quarter facelock bulldog and tells Kyle she won’t connect with her husband after her kids have moved out—which is actually apparently one of Kyle’s well-known concerns. Allison attempts to attack again with a somersault leg drop by cold reading that the tomboyish�looking Demi Moore twin gets along better with men than women, but Kyle spins with a clean miss and deflects the blow back to Allison.
In true WWF fashion, soon everyone is in the ring hurling insults and put�downs while Allison does her best acting job to appear as a devilishly evil cigarette smoker and Camille shrinks back with a Cheshire grin until the side split and everyone storms out. The crowd taunts Team Camille and espaicallt Wicked Witch Allison as our hero Kyle leads the troops in retreat to the Polo Lounge.
So what is all this non-sense really about?
Thess are all minor celebrities that want ot be on TV and obviously want ot get something out of it. It looks scripted to me, but I would be open that the actors may be scripting it themselves somewhat.
Kyle had no reason to push Allison for a reading, so she’s either dumb or just went along to create controversy to make sure the show gets picked up for another season. I imagine when Kyle found out Camille was bringing in her friend Allison, Kyle made a deal with the producers to allow her to bring in her friend Faye so that she could get some publicity too.
I’m guessing Camille just wants to be cuaght up in the swirl of controversy so that her name gets out there and hopefully leads to something else, but she doesn’t want to tbe the “Evil One”. So she brings in her friend Allison to play that part, which she can do because she won’t be getting consulting fees from “Medium” anymore and if comes across as the villian it may hurt syndicationfor “Medium” (and therefore Kelsy’s production company) but also get her a recurring role on the show for some nice controversial publicity to put seats in the seats for the upcoming U.S. tour.
One way or another, this was a publicity stunt and I think it only represents Allison playing a character. Not that that isn’t what she has always been doing anyway.
