Luann de Lesseps drank in the mornings to function, doesnt know if shes alcoholic
Luann de Lesseps of Real Housewives of NY is known for her very brief marriage to con man Tom D’Agostino, they divorced after eight months, and for being a drunken mess. More recently, she’s known for being an unapologetic racist a-hole who would never do blackface, even though she did blackface. She was arrested on Christmas Eve in Palm Beach for being drunk and assaulting a police officer. Right after that she went into rehab, but reports claimed she was drinking again as recently as last month. (For what it’s worth, her rep denied that.) Now Luann is claiming that she really is sober, but she doesn’t know if she’s an alcoholic because everyone tells her she’s not. People has a new interview with her, which you can watch on their site. Some of these quotes are from the video and some are from this article on People.
On her arrest
That night in Palm Beach was the worst thing that ever happened to me. It’s a night of course that I deeply regret and that I’m sorrowful about because it was so embarrassing and so shameful.
She complains about jail
I was in a sundress… they didn’t give me a blanket, a towel. I was freezing cold on this metal bench by myself all night long.
She claims she always drank responsibly
I’ve always been somebody who drinks responsibly… Drinking has been my boyfriend for a long time. The relationship with the boyfriend of alcohol stopped working. It was time to give that up and be by myself.
She drank in the mornings
I think I realized that I was having issues with drinking when you have that hair of the dog drink every day in order to function. It didn’t feel good… I was just drinking too much and alcohol just stopped working for me.
On going to rehab
It was sad because I was alone. I didn’t feel sad for myself. I felt proud of myself for being there. Rehab was a gift I gave myself. I never spent that much time focusing on me. I learned alcoholism is a disease.
Her life now
I wake up in the morning and I meditate then I’ll go to a meeting or I’ll go to yoga.
She has gratitude for what “happened” to her in Palm Beach
As horrible as that night in Palm Beach was, I have gratitude for that. I don’t think I would have stopped drinking if something this drastic hadn’t happened to me. I’m grateful to the universe for stopping me dead in my tracks. Too bad it took this far… public humiliation. Looking back it was meant to happen to me.
She doesn’t know if she’s an alcoholic
Everybody around me says ‘Luann you’re not an alcoholic.’ I don’t know if I’m an alcoholic or not.
[From article and video on People]
Notice how in this interview she isn’t taking responsibility for being drunk and disorderly, it’s something that “happened” to her, not something she did. She regrets it, but she’s “sorrowful” about it because “it was so embarrassing,” she’s not “sorry.” She did issue a statement after her arrest but it was an “I’m sorry for anyone I offended” non-apology.
People reports that Luann drank “at least seven drinks a day” since her split last year. Seven drinks a day is binge drinking every day for a woman, according to UK guidelines. (If you’re trying to monitor your alcohol intake try drinkaware.co.uk, it’s free.) Of course Luann’s friends tell her she’s not an alcoholic. Don’t they always say that? I’m not an AA person, but they have that saying that you can take your misery back anytime you want. Luann sounds like she wants to take her misery back. She’s still in denial. It’s all about HER and what happened to her and how alcohol wasn’t serving HER. Her jail experience was just awful, she slept on a cold bench and had her cell phone taken away after she kicked and threatened to kill a police officer. All of that just “happened” to her.
After I wrote all this a bunch of other interviews and stories came out about LuAnn, one of which was about Russell Simmons grabbing her ass in an elevator. She said she told him “How dare you? Don’t ever do that again.” He didn’t apologize to her after that. I believe her, he’s been called out as a rapist and a serial abuser by several women, and this is consistent with that. In response to Luann’s story, Russell’s PR person just re-issued his previous denial. Why bother issuing a new response at this point?
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