Kelly Bensimon: Reclaiming Her Narrative

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Let's get really real right now, Like I'm just happy to be where I am today.

I'm just like genuinely happy.

Welcome back to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk with women who have dared to pivot out of one career and into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. If you're an og Real Housewives fan, you'll know exactly who today's guest is. She went down in Bravo history for her many iconic scenes on the Real Housewives of

My name is Kelly Colaurin Ben Simone, I'm a mother.

I love that. Have you always defined yourself that way?

Always?

Did you think that you were going to be a parent?

Like?

Was that something that was a real important priority for you?

No?

And this is so strange.

You're asking that I went with my best friend to Raoul's and there's this fortune teller that's upstairs.

Who like reads hands, and she's like always really spirited and fun.

I was like, oh, I'll read my hand while I'm waiting for the restroom. She was like, oh, yeah, you're not going to have the life that people think you're going to have.

I was like, young, what are you talking about. She's like, yeah, and kids.

I don't know if you're and have kids and your life is very disjointed, she said, so. I was twenty years old when she said that. I'll never forget that. I mean, I love kids, you know, uninhibited, and you know, sweet and kind and interested and curious.

Well, I mean I ask if you always thought you were going to be a parent. Using my own lens.

I really didn't know if I was going to have kids. I just really didn't think about it that much. I only thought about myself in terms of my professional accomplishments and what that would look like in my life. Right. It was like a real shock to the system for me when I actually had kids.

But I was.

Reflecting to myself the other day about.

One of the positives that they have that they've brought that I think you just touched on is that I am kind of silly at my core, and I think that as I've gotten into adulthood, I suppressed that a little more and found ways outlets like karaoke or like going out in a ways that it felt acceptable. But now that I'm around my kids all the time, I can just be silly all the time, and that's actually more natural for me.

Yeah, it's funny that you say that, because I have like a very serious side to me, but eighty percent of my personality is just light and like very kid friendly, I think, and you know, a lot of great things that have happened to me, like I started being very successful in philanthropy at a young age because I worked with young kids. Like kids have always really helped me to do really big things and great things.

So let's go back in time. Can you paint a picture for us about child Kelly.

You have siblings. I do. I have a twin brother. I have an older sister.

We are very very close as brother and sister and as friends.

I'm from Rockford, Illinois.

I was a big swimmer. To walk to swim team practice every day, so I swam, you know, two to four hours a day, big, big swimmer, and just your typical suburban lifestyle with a lot of sports.

Typically in the suburbs, you see kids like sports, sports, sports, sports. I was one of them.

Kids.

Many of us had our first jobs when we were in high school. Usually it was the local ice cream shop. Mine was as a camp counselor. But Kelly had a vastly different experience starting to model as just a sophomore in high school.

So I started when I was fifteen, and my father knew this amazing man that worked in Chicago who was very connected in advertising, and he said, your daughtership model.

And I also.

Put myself into the Team Magazine contest. I had my twin brother take a photo of me and submitted myself into the contest, and I was runner.

Up to Cindy Crawford.

And I got this big contract with Elite, And at fifteen, I was living in New York with Stephanie Seymour. It was like my first day show up treatorns, white shorts, Polo Shum meeting Patrick Marsh He's like, oh, she's an American girl, and I was like, oh my god, this maybe the wrong outfit.

She's the wrong outfit.

But I wasn't thinking, like in Chicago, you just wore clothes. You didn't like have to like wear an outfit, and like in New York, and that's probably what I wear. Why I wear a lot of black today is you had to wear black top, black.

Skirt and heels everywhere.

Yeah.

No, I mean you're literally wearing that right now.

I know that's obviously God really a great Oh.

Yeah, it's like every time I look for something, I'm like body suit, skirt, boom.

What was it like moving to New York by yourself at fifteen?

I mean I came to New York, and I worked in New York.

But then I obviously was in high school, so I had to finish high school, and I was swimming, and obviously academics were super important to our family, and so I had to figure out how I was going to get myself into a college, all the typical things that every young adult is panic amount.

I was in the same boat, except for I was modeling.

So the truth of the matter is is that I wanted to go to Harvard, and I was like, I want to be a pediatric surgeon. I'm going to really go this route and I started modeling prior to that big idea in my head, and so I'm like, I'm going to apply to Harvard and I'm just going to go for it.

They were like, we'd like to for you, and I was deferred me.

So instead of Harvard, she pivoted to Trinity College, where her sister went.

At the time, it was probably the best decision I made, because if I hadn't, if I'd taken the route to go to Harvard, like, I would never be where I am today.

She was still modeling at the time, trying to make both her blossoming career and the academics work at the same time.

That was an anomaly. People were not going to college and modeling.

Modeling was a demanding job and not one that took place at Trinity College.

Like I had to like flight a Korea, or like it was like something larger than life.

Always, Kelly continued to bounce back and forth from her modeling jobs around the world and the classroom, trying to make the best of both worlds.

I was like this gorgeous campus, amazing academics, like the hottest guys, fun girls, like it's so great, and then I'd be like, oh, I got to have a go hop on a train at four thirty in the morning to like model for the day, and then up got a hop back on that train at six o'clock at night so I could and study on the train so I could go to my class.

I took all my classes.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays so I could model Monday, Wednesdays and Friday. So I had a really kind of stressful freshman year. So after my freshman year, my dad was just like, this is like you're burning the candle at both ends. This is not working for you. My agent was like, I want you to come to Paris. So I went to Paris for a year and then I was just just like this is so great, but I've got to go. It was hard because I was never like.

Immersed in something, do you know what I mean.

I never felt like, Okay, like I'm really one hundred percent involved in modeling. I'm never really one hundred percent in academics. And so I went back home to Rockford and I was modeling in Chicago, and then an agent came and she was like, what are you doing here? Like at home, She's like why, Like, I'm just modeling in Chicago. I wasn't even in college at the time. She was like, no, no, no, You're coming to New York.

How did you do that? I mean you were young, but how did.

You power through that? Didn't? Didn't?

I was exhausted all the time. People talk about issues with eating, It's just like it can be really dark. It's a dark, dark, dark path to go down. And I had to do things that created a structure for me so that I could work, but I also needed to be thin to work. And when I look back, I was like my body was starving, and so I was like holding on to anything that I kind of get, whether that was like latte, milk, whatever it was. Yeah,

I mean you were literally a hangar. I mean, let's be totally honest about it.

You have to wear the clothes, and so some people were just genetically tall and thin. I mean I am tall and slender, but I'm not skinny.

Do you think the industry has gotten better?

Oh, totally. It's changed so much. I would love to be modeling right now. I'd be like, yes, I'm like fine, I'm fine.

Like I was like, this is great. She was modeling at the height of the supermodel and eventually decided to put a pause on college. So she picked up and moved to New York City.

Got an apartment and was really laser focused on only modeling.

And my dad was freaking out. He's like, but you have to go to college. And I was like, okay, fine, one, I'm twenty five, I'll go back to college.

And so I literally called the Dina students at Columbia University. I was like, oh, I'd like to have a conversation with you. Because there was no cell phones, there was no emails. So I called him and I made an appointment and I just was like, if you give me a chance, I promise you you will not regret it.

But before she phoned up Columbia and eventually attended the school, she was at the peak of her career, jet setting around the world.

And it was a different time too.

It's like when I was modeling, you know, now one's like, oh Europe.

You know, everything is more global.

The models that worked in New York didn't work in Europe, and so for me to want to work in Europe, it's like the big deal.

They were like no, no, no, no.

But I was doing so well and I was seeing that, like the photographers were going back and forth, so I wanted to go back.

And forth with them.

That's when she met her ex husband, the famous photographer Jill ben Simone.

I met him and he was like, oh my god, like who is this person. So we went on a trip and Veronica Web was like, he really likes you. You should date him. And I'm like what, And I just broke up with my boyfriend, like literally the day before, and I was like, mmm, I don't know.

The one thing that I just was and still to this day, that I.

Just adore about him is at his incredible creative mind. I remember sitting behind him, looking over his shoulder and him drawing these circles, and I was just so enamored by the way and like the lightness of his hands, the way he threw these circles was beautiful, It's poetic. I was like, oh my god, this is amazing. I was so enamored with so many things that most people wouldn't think.

So we married three years after.

Were you worried about having kids in a modeling career? Was that something that was done at the time. Did you have mentors to help you through it.

Once I actually met my ex husband and my life changed. I'd met him, I was going back to college. My life was more controlled, so you know, I didn't know where I was had. I had a great mentor at Columbia who I started was taking all these writing classes because I'd been writing journals before, and the dean was like, you should really start with writing because you've been journaling like all this time. So I started with that. I met this amazing mentor who was incredible poet, Alan Ziegler.

Are you going to be a student.

Despite her almost decade long career, at this point, Kelly was still incredibly young, caught between Colombia and the sparkle of the fashion industry. She found the perfect opportunity to bridge that divide a newly created digital column for Elle magazine.

Jeane Godfrey June was starting a new platform called ll dot com, and she was like, I need writers. She was like, tell me your story. So I became one of the first bloggers on l dot com.

What were you writing for them?

This narrative about modeling and my adventures as a model.

It was basically like adventures with Kelly.

How I was modeling, who I was modeling with, where I was modeling, which kind of like forecasted what I was doing for page six because.

That was kind of the beginning of like the behind the scene. It's like, tell us the story because it looked so glamorous and it was like the behind the scene, right, and she.

Would like send me everywhere where. I would be like.

Going to the spa, and then they'd be taking picture of me at the spa and that would be writing about it, which was unusual because usually it was a model. But I was like a twofer right right, sound Kelly?

Did that feel like a comfortable place to then actually begin having kids? Balancing?

How did you figure that piece out just one day?

I just was pregnant. I didn't.

It wasn't like I was like, oh my god, I'm going to plan for this. I just was pregnant and I panicked. I'm not going to lie, but.

I'm like, what am I going to do? Who am I going to be? My ex husband as creative as amazing, easy is I think he was never there. I was with myself.

Still, she forged ahead, committed to creating a strong framework for her children.

I did what I always did, just put my head down and just focused on what I was doing. I always talk about focusing on the task at hand, and I was just like, Okay, here's my child.

But actually being a mother is a totally different situation. You are nurturing and raising them and creating a framework for them. And that was what scared me because I'm just like, wait a minute, Like I'm having a hard time figuring navigating my own world, let alone, Like now I have to raise two girls. And I have great parents and I'm grateful for everything that they've done for me, but I'm raising my own kids.

Now.

How did you have enough confidence in yourself?

As I guess the question I'm trying to ask, to be confident to do it differently than what other people had done.

Because I was by myself. No one of my friends were having children. I didn't know anyone that had a child. I just was doing my things on my own way. Yeah, and I would listen to what they were doing. They had like amazing nannies, and I was always like listening to what they were doing.

At the end of the day, I was just always just doing things my way.

Like so many women I know, Kelly did what she needed to do. She took her daughter everywhere so she could continue to work.

Brought my daughter with me, my oldest daughter with me absolutely everywhere she traveled her. She went to Hawaii, she went everywhere, in Paris, she went all of the place.

I brought her literally everywhere.

Yeah.

That was, I mean amazing, but also really stressful. I didn't sleep for the first like, you know, seven years of kids. But yeah, I mean just did it. I didn't think twice. This is like the beginning of when women were really really traveling and working and raising kids.

So the marriage dissolved, right, but you ended up living next door to your ex husband.

That is unusual, Yes, highly Yeah, how did that come about?

Well, just because you know he's older, did he do right by me in a lot of ways? Not necessarily, But at the end of the day, he's the father of my children, and so I do have a lot of respect for who he is and the role that he plays for my girls. And I tell him all the time, I'm like, you have to remember every single thing that you say and do. My girls are going to look for men like you.

That's such a poignant way to think about it. I think it really puts the responsibibility back on the men, not just to say like they're watching, they're watching you, but like to really make it.

So congruent they're watching you, they're watching.

And they're internalizing the way you.

Speak to them. You know, what you do, how you do things.

With the new Real Housewives of New York legacy and the new new cast of Real Housewives of New York happening, how one gets cast is always a swirl of gossip and some mystery. So what made Kelly the right candidate and fit for a show like Real Housewives of New York. She had an ever changing path from Trinity College to modeling, to Columbia to writing, to marriage and of course motherhood.

So let's let's get really real right now.

Like two thousand and eight was a very very big year, not just for me but for a lot of people.

Lehman Brothers is going bankrupt and financial markets from Asia to Europe are doing their utmost to prevent Monday from turning from dark to black.

So I think this is the most significant financial crisis in the post war period.

There are fears that selloff will continue on Wall.

Street, soaring gas prices, falling home prices, and rising unemployed.

What the heck is going on down here?

I had just gotten divorced, left l accessories, was trying to figure out what I was going to do next. I wasn't modeling at the time, and came and.

I lost absolutely everything. So we're two thousand and eight, I have no money, I.

Have two kids, trying to figure out how I'm going to provide for them and give them the education and the framework that they deserve.

Every child deserves that. And I just wanted to make sure that my girls.

Had absolutely everything, not product bags, not bullshit, but like absolutely every single tool in their tool belt so that they could be successful, because that's.

Our job as parents.

Our job is to create a framework so that our children are going to be successful and better than us because there are a legacy.

So that was very, very very stressful.

So you know, here I am thirty six years old, like what am I going to do with my life? What's happening with me? And I decided to go on Housewives not because I thought it would be a good idea. Decided to go on Housewives because I was like, I need something new. I can't live in this microbubble of New York of l and my ex husband and I became the provider and the nurturer like literally overnight. And you know, the people that I've known for a long time,

I wasn't doing anything.

That was like larger than life, that could really like pivot me into something else. So that's why I went onto Housewives. And it was the best thing.

It was the best thing that I had ever done, but it was so stressful.

In the American dream, one mistake at a time, create a great life, and I love living in the most interesting people make the best headlines.

What was your mindset going in?

I was supposed to be another show with Tim Gunn before there was Project Runway. Tim used to have all these different editors and designers come into persons and judge all the students. So I met so many great designers from that. And then he'd created Project Runway, and so they wanted me to do something with him, and then they chose Veronica. Webin said love her. Then the e Exit producers sat.

Down with me.

He was like, you were just so spirit and you have such a good personality, and you've done a lot of things in your life.

We would love to have you on the show.

So Kelly joined the show among now household names like Bethany Frankel and Ramona Singer. She joined the cast when reality TV was a new frontier and no one knew how a producer edit could change the script. Well, Kelly's time on Real Housewives of New York was pretty short. She made the most of it.

Reality TV is amazing though, Really TV's over the top, just like modeling.

So when you went on the show, where was the point you actually kept pretty serious boundaries around privacy Considering that you were on a show that was about opening up your personal life, right, how did you manage that they didn't really.

Want to fill my personal life? Actually, do you want to come to this part. Now do you want to come to that note? Do you want to do this note? They didn't want to do it. They just wanted to see me interact.

So it was just like.

Every single time I walked I opened the door, it was like an opportunity for them to go wild.

And that was great. It was great?

Was it great? I mean?

Did it for me?

I mean, I know you said you felt like you were you were filling a role for them. At what point did you feel like you were or were not in control of your storyline.

I wasn't in control of my storyline. I would just come in and just see what was going to happen. And I remember them asking me questions about other women. I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Like, I have no idea that these people are.

I didn't.

I had no idea where they were.

Yeah.

He was like, what are your thoughts about so and so?

I'm like, I really don't have thoughts about her because I met her for twenty seconds. But sometimes you just don't know people and then there's an organic connection. Sometimes it's just not yeah, and that's not good or bad, it's just real.

Why did you decide to keep doing it, and it was really good for my business.

And I was asked me on the cut a Playboy and that's really why I continued my second season. David Pecker, who was my boss at EL bought American Media and he bought Playboy and put me on the cover, which was a total anomally. It was turning forty.

She did the cover in an effort to reclaim her storyline. She went back for her second season and could never quite shake Reality TV. She left the Real Housewives franchise in twenty eleven and later joined Million Dollar Listing after getting her real estate license and joining the renowned Douglas Ellman firm in twenty nineteen.

Well, especially a million dollar Listing filming with Frederick and just having him just give me that massive stamp of approval.

And just saying, like, you guys don't know who she is.

She's a major broker in New York and has this huge team and is going to kill it. Just literally just set the stage for my actual with my career today.

Literally three reasons that you should use me as a real estate broker.

One I maximize your value, Two I maximize expos sure, and three I maximized transparency, which means I tell you everything about your deal and I bring you the best of the best to make you a deal actually happened, and.

Her successful shift into real estate earned her the number one deal during COVID for forty two million dollars. But despite her new success, real estate was never the plan. It took the passing of her mother to push her into it.

So my mother asked me to sell my family home. And I basically didn't want anyone to know what I was doing, and so I drove to it.

Why didn't you want any to know what you were doing?

Because I know I'm in this business. In reality, people are like, oh my god, I saw her on the street. What she doing. I didn't want to, like shoot my own horn.

I was doing something for the right reasons, and I didn't want to promote it. In reality, everyone always wants to promote stuff, which is great for them.

But this was my.

Real reality, and I needed to make sure that I was getting my license and I was taking care of business.

And so I drove.

To Brooklyn every single day and I took the test and then I organized it. So it was like the two weeks I took the test, and then on the Monday, I took the state test, and so there was no room for error because I had to start getting things going.

But she is the reason that I'm in real estate. I mean, her passing.

And her actively forcing me to sell my family's portfolio is the reason that I'm licensed in New York, that I'm licensed in Florida, that I'm licensed in the Hampton's, I'm going to be licensed in Aspen.

I mean, she held my hands so.

Hard I thought she was gonna break my hand off. She was like, you need to help your father sell these properties.

Were you able to get your license and take care of it before she passed?

Yes, she said, no, no, no, no, no, no, she passed before she passed before she passed really quickly.

My mother had pancreatic cancer and we found out in March and she passed.

By August, so that's a really quick one. It's just it's hard. I'm sorry about that.

It was very tough, especially the relationship that we had. It's really tough.

Where do you think you're going next.

I'm just so excited about what my girls are doing, you know. It's like, I love my team. I love Doug as Almon. You know, I love real estate, but I'm just like happy, you know, like for the first time in my life.

Great, so.

I don't feel the same stress.

And it's like I know that this will resonate with a lot of women, because whether you're sixteen to have a child or you're forty year of a child, it's like, you know, bringing children into this world, it's a huge responsibility and I take it really seriously, and I know a lot of women do too.

You know, my parents gave up a lot for me. I've given up a lot for my kids, and I'm just happy to be where I am today. I'm just like genuinely happy, and I'm.

Just excited to see what's going to happen and like how my life is going to up and just being able.

To like Douglas Alm has just been incredible. They just like see who I am and they're like, we love who you are. You're a supermodel, You're a superstar. We just love it.

And it's just like I just feel like I'm in a position right now where I'm really shining and all the things that I've done throughout my life, like I'm putting into my career and it's working and it's just great.

And I have a great team.

My kids are healthy, and my ex husband is healthy, and I have a quick boyfriend, and I just.

Feel very, very lucky to be where I am today. And like people, you know, they see you on TV and they're like, you know, honestly.

Like TV's changed. And when I was on television, like I don't want to talk about what was going on with me because the noise was so loud no one could hear my voice. And maybe at that time that my story wasn't interesting enough. It was a different time. People weren't really concerned about what was happening being you know, with people with like not having money, all those big, big, big concerns. People weren't didn't want to hear about it

Oh my god, poor me. It's like the cheerleader. It's like, oh my god, I'm so sad. I wasn't so sad, it was really scared.

Well.

I asked this question of all of my guests, is there something in your life that you felt like at the time felt really negative and now in retrospect was a big positive.

Yeah, two thousand and eight just negative for everybody. It was a shitty time. Market collapsed, so did lives. But it's not like what happens to you, and that's whatever all my mentors say. They're like, it doesn't matter what's happening to you. It's how you overcome it. It's like how you take that next step.

And I mean, every single human is going to have adversity in their life and it's just really what you do and how you what next step you take.

Thank you so much, Kelly.

Thank you so much for joining us with you so much.

So great to have you on. Thank you. Kelly still lives in New York City with her two daughters. You might see her in the Douglas Element real estate magazines are running through the streets of the city. Kelly continues to write and connect with her fans through TikTok and more. You can find her seven books wherever you get your books, and follow her online at Kelly Bensimone. She pivots is an amazing community of women understand that personal is the professional.

I endorse che Pivots.

Tired of ads interrupting your gripping investigations. Good news AD free listening on Amazon Music is included with your Prime membership. Ads shouldn't be the scariest thing about true crime. Just head to Amazon dot com slash ad free true Crime to catch up on the latest episodes without the ad shows a free for pun suscribers. Some shows me how that.

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