Ramona vs. Bethenny. Bethenny vs. Luann. Luann vs. Dorinda. The Real Housewives of New York City has had plenty of feuds in recent seasons, but the one the season 12 premiere set up is a little more surprising than some we've seen in the past. On RHONY, Tinsley Mortimer and Dorinda Medley are butting heads, and it doesn't look like their issues are going to be resolved very quickly.
Tinsley and Dorinda's fight at Dorinda's end of summer party in the season 12 premiere didn't come out of nowhere, but with everything that happened last season (cabaret! the fish room! not touching the Morgan letters!), you may have forgotten about there being an issue between these two. After all, their beef didn't come up until — surprise — there it was tacked on in the finale of the season 11.
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If you don't recall, during the final regular episode of RHONY last season, Dorinda told Tinsley that she believed Tinsley and her now-fiancé Scott Kluth had some sort of "arrangement" in which he paid for things for her and that Tinsley wasn't being honest with the other Housewives about it. Tinsley was basically like, what the hell are you talking about?
At the Real Housewives of New York reunion, this continued with the focus being around Tinsley's financial situation, which Dorinda and a couple of the other women said seemed to change whether she was with Scott or not. Tinsley eventually just said something about how she has money because her family is rich. (By the way, she'd been starring on a hit reality TV show for three years at that point. She shouldn't really be hurting for dough.)
Anyway, there seemed to be more to this than just Dorinda wanting to know where Tinsley's money was coming from, which is why the drama is now continuing into season 12.
As explained on Thursday's new episode, the problem between Tinsley and Dorinda is currently this: Dorinda thinks Tinsley isn't transparent about her life, particularly her relationship with Scott. As Dorinda says in the premiere, "There seems to be a lot of side game going on." Dorinda doesn't feel she knows the real Tinsley, because she won't truly open up; Tinsley thinks Dorinda is projecting and making up conspiracy theories.
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While this is all presented on the show as how Dorinda personally feels about Tinsley, it's not hard to see that Dorinda might really be getting at the fact that on a reality show like Real Housewives you're meant to share everything about your life, and she feels Tinsley isn't doing that. If that is the case, RHONY probably won't show Dorinda directly saying it. The closest we get in this episode is Dorinda starting her conversation with Tinsley by telling her, "What I want to say to preface this whole year ... We can't always be guessing, grabbing, trying to pull out information." That sure sounds like it's about the season; this was their first night back filming as a group.
We know that this season Tinsley goes on to get engaged to Scott off-camera in Chicago and skips the cast trip to Mexico, so Dorinda isn't wrong as far as Tinsley having "side game going on." That said, the stuff about Tinsley not opening up and having an "arrangement" with Scott is ridiculous, and Dorinda's comment about Tinsley laying on her back for shoes was totally uncalled for and a particularly dark moment from her. Tinsley is a woman who looked at a photo of her frozen eggs and cried "My babies!" A woman who met her fiancé for the first time on the show. A woman who sobbed to her mother about being depressed while in clown makeup. Maybe she's not up to Dorinda's standards of transparency, but she's up to Bravo's. For now.
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