Kelly Bensimon

BRAINS? meet BEAUTY.

THIS REAL HOUSEWIFE OF NEW YORK CITY

HAS IT ALL

elly Bensimon doesn't just walk into a cafe. She glides in wearing three-

inch heels and black 1 leather pants that coat | her long, slim stems. A film crew trails her to a table already wired for sound so the cameras pick up every word she says. She wears her Kelly-ness on the sleeves of her flowing pirate-sleeve white blouse.

Cafe Select in Manhattan's SoHo is in the midst of a rush. The murmuring lunch crowd

turns and watches her enter, tracking her glowing smile. Word moves quickly among

the patrons that there's a Real Housewife from The Real Housewives of New York City on the

premises, i nouyn many woui admit it, when Bensimon enters, they all know who she is.

"Hi there," Bensimon says by way of introduction. She smiles, the cameras rolling. "I have to warn you," she says. "I'm a little bit shy."

Shy? Hard to believe, consid­ering the character she plays (ostensibly herself) on Real Housewives. The TV version

of Kelly is brash, hotheaded, ambitious, self-promoting, opinionated and unapologetic. But

the truth is, though the real Bensimon has many of those attributes, her non-TV persona (which she seems to be offer­ing up even though the cameras are roll­ing) is a lot classier, smarter, kinder and warmer than you might have imagined. Basically, she loves leather pants and the spectacle of sex on parade, but she's also a dedicated equestrian, a success­ful author and a doting mother. She's 41 years old and she's hot. Like, very hot. Read about her in the tabloids and you think, Trashy. In person? Not so much.

"I don't pay attention to those nega­tive stories people tell about me," she says. "Everybody has a story to tell, and they have nothing to do with me. I don't respond because I don't need to. I'm not 14. I graduated from high school, I graduated from college, I have two kids. I leave the bitching to other people."

Bensimon was raised on a Rockford, Illinois farm. Like so many willowy, beguiling Midwestern girls before her, she set out for New York City as a teen­ager to pursue a modeling career. She landed in the pages of Elle, Cosmopoli­tan, Harper's Bazaar and various other fragrant glossies. She met famed fash­ion photographer Gilles Bensimon on a shoot and later married him. (He's the one who shot these photographs.) Remarkably, she managed to exit the modeling industry gracefully, unbur­dened by eating disorders or drug prob­lems, and became for a time the editor of Elle Accessories, as well as the mother of two happy daughters. She enrolled in Columbia University and earned a degree in literature and creative writing. Then she wrote three books, including a photo history of the Hamptons and (surprise!) a book about the history of bikinis, called The Bikini Book.

Now a couple of years past a success­fully amicable divorce from Gilles, she has tried playing the field for the first time in more than a decade. (Not as suc­cessfully: A month after these pictures were shot, she allegedly punched her 31-year-old boyfriend, Nick Stefanov, in the face, leaving a nasty gash. Dating, it turns out, isn't like riding a bike.)

"Regardless of the tough parts, I'm having a great time, and my kids are having fun seeing their mother on television," she says, her hazel eyes so bright they seem to glow. "They go into their dad's studio and Beyonce is there, so they aren't fazed by their mom being on a TV show. I'm still their mom. I still pick them up from school."

On the sidewalk after lunch she hitches her perfect Dior purse on her shoulder and checks her phone. "So," Bensimon then says, "what kind of story are you going to tell?" How about a story about the two Kellys—the one on TV and the one with her clothes off.

"I HAVE TO

WARN YOU. I'M

A LITTLE

BIT SHY."