Meet the Press

It’s episode one and straight out of the gate we have a scene worthy of a full hour — that’s good TV in my opinion.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the first episode, though there are things I wish made it in that didn’t. To me, it seems as though I gave Jill a pass by the time we got to the magazine party. That party was a week later, and by then there had been lots of back and forth, particularly between Bobby and Simon, and we were almost at the end of it. The most awkward thing was my atrocious grammar at home when saying we’d already spent too much time talking about the situation. Oops.

In a normal world, it’s inappropriate to rehash things that happened 7 months ago, but our world’s a bit surreal in that we’re seeing on TV what happened last year. In hindsight, here are a few thoughts. It would have been nice for Simon or me to have called Jill after NY Magazine came out, and neither of us did. He didn’t make the Long Island comment in an offensive way, and I didn’t read it as offensive when the article came out. I’ve seen other people say much more snarky things about Jill that no one took offense to, but that’s beside the point. Moving on to the Post. Gossip columnists exaggerate, as do angry people. The thing that bothered me the most in Cindy’s article was obviously the comment about Simon, which was out of left field, exaggerated and an over-the-top reaction to a mild comment.If Simon threw a paper airplane at Jill in NY Mag, she threw back an H-Bomb in the Post. It’s no fun to be the only sober adult at a party at 2am, a situation in which Jill found herself one night back in June. As she and I were talking, Simon crouched down to talk to someone who was sitting on a cushion on the floor, lost his balance and sat down hard. That’s it. No more, no less. It was a bumbling move that could have happened to any tall person who leaned down that way, certainly facilitated by fatigue and alcohol, but certainly not "falling down three times." It got blown way out of proportion for reasons known only to Jill and Cindy Adams’ editor, and then the press picked it up and raced away with it. Accusations like Jill’s are really hard to stomach because people tend to believe them. If she wanted to retaliate she could have said, "And he’s from Australia and it shows." Mock his accent, mock his dress sense or his devotion to me, but don’t say something that could affect his real life when business associates Google him. Jill and I had this conversation months ago, and now I’m sharing a few relevant parts with you. Done — let’s move on.

I learned something about the Hamptons in 2008. When you don’t have an agenda, a weekend out there can be fun. Simon and I have been going out to the Hamptons one or two weekends a year for several years. We did this mostly when I was an actress, and a trip out east involved me chatting up as many producers and directors as possible to agitate for meetings, which would lead to more work. We often attended the Hamptons film festival and I appeared in a few films that were part of it. That’s why when cameras rolled on Season 1 and we were asked out to the Hamptons, I rolled my eyes. Guess what? When the only thing on the to-do list is to have fun, a weekend out there is much more enjoyable. In summer of 2008 we spent 4 weekends out east and had a great time, some of which you’ll see this season. I still prefer a low-season, warm water destination for longer family vacations (such as a deserted island with restaurants and shopping,) but will definitely head for the Hamptons once or twice next summer.

We were both surprised that Bethenny made the comment about us attending the Social Life Magazine party, particularly considering what happened later in the summer. I’d say “watch what happens,” but of course don’t know what will make the show and what will wind up on the cutting room floor.

When Kelly joined the cast, I vaguely knew of her. We had passed each other at parties, but had never been introduced or talked. She is a friend of a friend, which one can say about pretty much everyone in New York, as it’s such a small place. Upon hearing she’d been cast, I gave her a call to welcome her to the show, and we ran into each other that night at a party.

It’s been a wild ride and Season 2 is off to a great start — hop on over to www.mccordvankempen.com to see what Simon has to say!