I’ve turned my story into a CABARET
And why wouldn’t she, considering she’s gone through romance, heartbreak, addiction and law-breaking – all part of a show Real Housewife Luann de Lesseps is bringing to Dublin
LIZA Minelli famously sang about it in the hit musical but for Countess Luann de Lesseps, life really is a cabaret. The smoky-voiced star, who was thrust into the spotlight on reality TV series The Real Housewives of New York, turned 59 yesterday but there’s no sitting alone in her room for this diva.
Indeed, she’s expanding her horizons by bringing her show Marry F Kill to Dublin’s Vicar Street, where she’ll sing, regale audiences with tales of her fascinating life and, of course, wear lots of Jovani.
‘I have never been there so I am super excited,’ she says, speaking from her New York apartment. ‘I had a load of fans asking me on social media, “Please bring your cabaret show over here, come to Ireland and to London.” My biggest demand is probably London and Ireland.
‘You guys love the Housewives over there but you’re going to love this cabaret because it is more cabaret meets comedy meets a fashion show. And you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be wearing Jovani.’
Jovani, of course, is the New York designer brand that became household news because of the Housewives and a subsequent meme which Luann promptly turned into a dance hit Feelin’ Jovani, just one of her many successful singles. You’d have to wonder, with Luann’s already glam life, why she would even be bothered to put herself out there in the tough world of showbiz to sing and tour. ‘It’s a passion of mine,’ she says of the career she began in 2018. ‘It was a really good friend of mine who said “you know, you love house parties, you love to sing for your friends and you love to tell jokes — you should do a cabaret”. ‘Then I got married to Tom and that didn’t happen. Then it came to me that I wanted to do it. That’s really how it came about, it is my passion for music. I write my own shows so it is all about the songs that I love.’ Ah yes, Tom, Luann’s second husband and a relationship that played out on our TV screens, albeit badly. Luann was 28 and working as a nurse and a model when she married Count Alexandre de Lesseps — the man who made her a Countess — in 1993. It was a whirlwind romance that lasted 17 years and gave Luann her two children, Victoria and Noel. When the first series of RHONY aired in 2008, the pair were together but behind the scenes all was not well and in 2009 the marriage ended. After her heartbreak, Luann met Jacques Azoulay, who she was with for four years before splitting amicably.
Two years later, in 2015, Luann met Tom D’Agostino through their mutual friend and fellow Housewife Dorinda Medley. They started dating in late 2015 and were engaged by February 2016.
As they planned their wedding on screen during series eight of RHONY, fellow Housewife Bethenny Frankel received shocking information that Tom had been unfaithful.
But Luann went ahead with the wedding on New Year’s Eve 2016, only to split with Tom less than a year later.
There have been troubled times too. She has been honest about her struggles with alcohol, which saw her on the wrong side of the law in 2017 when she was placed on probation after being charged with disorderly intoxication before getting sober.
She has said in the past that she takes things day by day when it comes to alcohol. However, when it comes to love, glamorous Luann is playing the dating game again — most recently reportedly with Olivier Sarkozy, the exhusband of Mary-Kate Olsen and brother of Nicholas Sarkozy, but apparently this has fizzled out.
Even so, there’s plenty of action at the minute — though Luann is not one to kiss and tell. ‘It’s spring, darling, spring is in the air,’ she tells me in that husky drawl of hers. ‘I had a real dry spell but all of a sudden it’s raining men. I don’t know what happened. I’m thrilled.
‘Nobody to write home about just yet but you know, circling, which is good.’ When I explain that here we generally only date one fella at a time, the Countess is horrified.
‘That’s crazy,’ she says. ‘I’m going to have to come over there and show you kids a thing or two. I talk about dating and dating apps in the show and I give my dating tips and I can’t wait for you to come to the show because it’s informative as well. It’s about
‘I’ll have to show you kids a thing or two about dating’
my journey and that comes along with the downfalls and the good stuff.
‘I talk about bad dates, I talk about good dates and what is a good date. It’s a party and it’s engaging and that’s what I love about my show. I am connected to the audience and they are connected to me and we have this common thread which is Housewives.
‘But there’s lots of drinking after and they make friends because they have the commonality of the Housewives to talk about so already they are connected. It is a very connecting experience.’
It was Luann’s legions of fans who came up with the name of her new show too.
‘In the six years I’ve been doing the cabaret, I do a Q&A with the audience and let me tell you there’s not one time that someone in the audience wouldn’t ask, “Who would you marry, f***, kill?”and give me three choices because it’s a game girls play, right? Guys too, I guess, but I didn’t really know what that was so I learned through my fans.
‘I thought to myself that’s my next tour and then I realised I had to write a song for it. It was the inspiration from my fans who I love because they get dressed for me. They show up for me, there are sequins and statement necklaces. They turn it out for me, which is such a huge honour.’ Marry F Kill is now added to the list of Luann’s hits like Money Can’t Buy Class, Chic, C’est La Vie, Viva La Diva, Girl Code and more, which are included in the cabaret. There are also covers of classics that relate to the story of Luann’s life.
‘My fans know the songs because they grew up on them or they were listening to the same kind of music as I was,’ she says. ‘I sing the songs that I am passionate about and then I tell the story of why I loved that song and what was happening in my life at that time.
‘Then I pick what Jovani dress works for that song. For example, I’m covering Tina Turner so you can imagine what that dress looks like.
‘I will be doing the music you guys know and love, and it’s funny and chic. It’s really about the stories behind the songs and that’s what cabaret is about — it’s the personal story.’
After growing up in Connecticut as one of six siblings to a French Canadian mother and construction company owner father, Luann studied nursing but became a model after winning a pageant for Miss Connecticut and travelling and working in Europe, where she met Alexandre.
But it was her decision to become a Real Housewife that made her an international superstar, something she and the other original Housewives were not expecting.
‘We had no idea,’ Luann says of her fame. ‘It was a pilot and I think we got paid not more than $10,000 for the entire first season. We didn’t expect it to have that level of popularity because Sex And The City was kind of over, Desperate Housewives was on so it was kind of a reality version of Sex And The City meets Desperate Housewives.’
When RHONY was revamped recently, the producers recast the housewives and Luann says the fans still miss the original gang. ‘We just did Ultimate Girls Trip for you guys and poor us we had to go to St Bart’s for an entire week — it was terrible,’ she says laughing.
‘I think the fans miss us. We were on television for 14 years and do you have Crappie Lake over there?’ she asks of the spin-off series with her fellow RHONY housewife Sonja Morgan.
‘People love that and now I am doing different things and who knows, maybe they will do another trip somewhere — the OGs of New York need to go to Dublin and film that.’
In Dublin, the Countess is spending an extra day and is hoping for a little history, a little food and a little culture. When I ask if she might have a date or two while here, she drawls: ‘Darling! A date, yes, a date or two? I’m not that fast. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression.’
Luann is also an established actress and has written a book Class With The Countess: How To Live With Elegance And Flair. So is the life of Countess Luann De Lesseps really as glamorous as we think? ‘Would I say it’s glamorous? Yeah! I like it that way. Glam is feeling good about yourself, glam is dressed to kill, glam is all of that, glam is viva la diva,’ she exclaims.
‘Life is a cabaret and we write our story, so my story is written, hopefully living the best glam I can while I can get away with it.’
Glam it certainly is — while the lyrics of her songs are tonguein-cheek, the methods behind them and her performance certainly are not. Marry F Kill is directed by Richard Alexander, who has worked with greats like Barbra Streisand.
‘I love what I do and it’s fun for me,’ Luann says, stressing that time and a lot of work is put into the show to make it perfect. There’s a new video too coming for the single Marry F Kill featuring none other than Candance Bushnell, author and creator of Sex And The City.
‘Candace is a very good friend and she helped me out with my music video for Marry F Kill, which will be out at the end of this month,’ Luann reveals. ‘Candace is in the video and we shot it last weekend and I have Tracy Young who is remixing the song, she won a Grammy with Madonna, so Dublin is in for a treat.’
While she denies that any of the Sex And The City characters might be based on her, if Countess Luann was to choose a character she was most like, it would be Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones.
‘Always in trouble with a boy, so you know,’ Luann says in those husky tones. ‘I mean if I’m going to get in trouble, I want to be in trouble with a boy, not with a Housewife, because they are much more difficult!’
COUNTESS Luann: Marry F Kill! is at Vicar Street, Dublin, on June 3, see singularartists.ie for tickets and details. Luann & Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake and all episodes of every series of The Real Housewives of New York are available to stream on Hayu.
‘I’m living the best glam I can while I can get away with it’