Tinsley’s ad guy
SOME members of Bravo’s “Real Housewives of New York City” cast are sniping that a series of ads bought by Tinsley Mortimer’s wealthy new beau have helped her get ahead on the show. But the network says the scuttlebutt is nonsense and that the ads her boyfriend, Scott Kluth, bought for his Web site CouponCabin.com have nothing to do with Tins staying on the show for a second season. A Bravo rep called the claims “totally inaccurate in every way.”
After the newest member of the cast was snapped up for a second time, whispers began to circulate among her detractors that Bravo signed her up in part because her techy beau Kluth bought hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of ads during the Bravo show.
One of the ads — which stars the Tins and fellow cast member Carole Radziwill — already ran several times during the final episodes of the season. In the spots, Radziwill explains to Mortimer how the site works and admires her purchases, enthusing, “This is a nice toilet!”
Sources close to Mortimer say that she was never in danger of being chopped, and that she’s been a hit with fans and the press. Page Six reported back in May that Tinsley — whose former husband, Topper Mortimer, recently got engaged — was dating Kluth, whose Web site is headquartered near Chicago. But her relationship with Kluth has provided at least one perk for the socialite-turned-reality-TV star: Kluth hooked Mortimer up with a job. She revealed on a late August episode of Andy Co
hen’s “Watch What Happens Live” that she’s now working as an account manager at his company (during the interview she, naturally, plugged the company, saying that she’d bought her dress for the “Housewives” reunion show through the site). And sources tell us that Kluth is considering buying an apartment for Mortimer — who spent last season living with co-star
Sonja Morgan — in NYC. Kluth founded the company in 2003. In 2011, it reportedly raised $54 million in its first round of funding.