13 iconic dorinda medley moments, ranked.
The ‘Real Housewives’ star made it nice. Then she became unwatchable.
I have a confession to make. For many years after the concept premiered and started spawning endless spinoffs on Bravo, I refused to watch any Real Housewives series. In many ways, the show stands for everything I find obnoxious and indefensible — its breathless celebration of generational wealth, its bizarre legacy of racial segregation, its decidedly anti-feminist, sexist worldview and its incredibly problematic ruler of the kingdom, Andy Cohen.
But slowly over time, I was converted. Fast forward to today and I watch every franchise except for New Jersey (everyone has a limit). In the last two years alone, on top of watching the new series as they come out, I’ve done full-series rewatches of Atlanta, Potomac and New York. I went so far down the rabbit hole that I created a PowerPoint dossier in an effort to convince my friend Diamond to watch the New York series. And amid the pandemic and our nation’s slow descent into an autocratic government, the shows have become one of my most reliable sources of mindless joy and escapist entertainment.
It all really began with the New York edition, which I started watching religiously around the eighth season (which aired in 2016). The eighth season begins, for me, RHONY’s golden era, and it’s no accident that it also coincides with the second full season of Dorinda Medley. Alongside the core cast members of Bethenny Frankel, Ramona Singer, Sonja Morgan and Luann De Lesseps, Medley caught her stride that year and soon became responsible for many of the show’s most memorable moments. She was genuinely snappy with endless one-liners. She invited the full cast to her bizarrely over-decorated home in the Berkshires every holiday season. Wearing her chaotic Sagittarius energy on her sleeve, she wormed her way into our hearts.
Somewhere along the way, Medley’s energy darkened, her mean-drunk tendencies became harder to watch and now (following an extremely bizarre outburst regarding Tinsley Mortimer on the current season’s finale) she’s on the outs. After six seasons as a full-time star on the show and amid reports that she was fired because she had become challenging to film with, she recently announced she was leaving the show.
I’m not sure how I’ll fill the Blue Stone Manor-sized hole in my heart. (Photo: Bravo)
Medley’s exit is bittersweet for me. Her energy reminds me of a close friend I’ve since fallen out with who was one of the sweetest, funniest and smartest people I’d ever met. But when he started drinking, he would twist his gifts into a tool for cruelty. He’d scream at friends out of nowhere, or storm out of rooms and fully ghost on parties. After one public blowout five or six years, where I confronted him in the middle of a DJ event I had organized, he walked out and we have had no contact ever since then.
When I look back at the experience, I recognize that the friendship had grown toxic and that the separation was probably for the best. But I still think of my friend and the good memories we shared together, dancing to Whitney Houston’s “Step By Step” on repeat in his Lakeview studio at 2 a.m. or downing jello shots and domineering the pre-digital jukebox at Town Hall Pub.
In the spirit of honoring the good while acknowledging the bad, I wanted to share and rank some of Dorinda Medley’s most iconic moments through the years.
13. The time Dorinda coached a bartender in Miami on how to properly mix her drink.
12. The time Dorinda said she’d rather be watching Ghost Hunters than attending a party. It’s possible that I’ve never related more personally to a housewife than I did in this moment (excluding when Phaedra Parks announced she was becoming a mortician).
11. The time Dorinda and Sonja repeatedly interrupted Ramona during a speech at a charity event.
10. The time Dorinda (seemingly?) confused Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg and called SNL “the NSL” while explaining the backstory to her Lady Gaga Halloween costume.
9. The time Dorinda showed us that she also crafts self-hope poetry on the fly.
8. The time Dorinda confronted Ramona while giving a toast at a dinner and the dialogue paired perfectly with Peanuts animation.
7. The time Dorinda heckled Luann during her cabaret show. She apparently felt that Luann wasn’t gracious for Dorinda connecting her with Jovani, the company that provided her dresses. Of course, Luann ended up getting the last laugh by titling her next atrocious pop single “Feelin’ Jovani.”
6. The time Dorinda toasted Luann and Tom on their engagement.
5. The time Dorinda invented “clip, clip, clip, you fool” and ruined a lot of diners’ lunches. Carole Radziwill says it best here: “When Dorinda is bad, she is so good.”
4. The time Dorinda stabbed her own hand during a drunken rant at a dinner table in Mexico.
3. The time Dorinda planted her face in her own birthday cake — which was covered in lit candles.
2. The time Dorinda ranted at Luann and her other Blue Stone Manor guests and invented one of her two most marketable catchphrases: “I made it nice.”
1. The time Dorinda spoke for all of us trying to exist in the Trump presidency after being asked how she was doing and invented her other most marketable catchphrase.
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Watch: Did you know that Supermarket Sweep is coming back, with Leslie Jones signed on as a host? The original was one of my favorite shows ever — I used to cut out photos of hundreds of grocery store products from newspaper ads, assemble them in a “store” on the living room floor and force my parents to play my own self-written Sweep themselves. (I was a very hip child.) This past week we got our first look at the rebooted show, which is premiering next month on ABC. Of all the terrible things that have happened in 2020, it’s incredible to finally have something good happening.
Read: Have you heard about Jessica Krug yet? She is a George Washington University professor who built an entire academic career off of pretending to be Black. How far did she go to keep up the rouse? She reportedly skipped her mother’s funeral for fear that it could reveal the truth. The Washington Post has the full story, and the university has since said that Krug will not teach next semester. Below is testimony that Krug gave to the NYC City Council in June, if you want to witness one of the wildest attempts at an accent I’ve ever seen (and that includes Dorit Kemsley).
While we’re talking about frauds, be sure to read The Atlantic’s new expose on how our president truly feels about military veterans and share it with everyone you know. Also, be aware that this administration is now telling on themselves by moving to ban anti-racism trainings at federal agencies because they are “divisive” and “anti-American.” We have 59 days to go until the election.
Final thought: This Mariah Carey tweet made my week. That’s all.
