Kelly Bensimon’s 10 Most Unhinged RHONY Moments

Kelly Bensimon was only on RHONY for three seasons, but she managed to leave behind enough bizarre moments to make a Top 10 list surprisingly easy. Some of her finest work happened on Scary Island, but Morocco gave us plenty of Kelly insanity too. Here are her ten most unhinged moments.

1. Telling Bethenny She Was a Cook, Not a Chef

During the infamous Scary Island dinner, Kelly became fixated on Bethenny calling herself a chef. She repeatedly insisted that Bethenny was a cook instead. It was one of those arguments where you could practically see everyone at the table wondering how the conversation had gotten there.

2. Claiming Bethenny Was Trying to Kill Her

Kelly told the women that she was having nightmares about Bethenny killing her. This wasn’t Kelly making a snarky Housewives accusation during an argument. She was genuinely presenting the idea that Bethenny was a threat to her. It became one of the most disturbing and bizarre parts of the entire Scary Island situation.

3. The Jelly Beans

While the other women were trying to deal with Kelly’s increasingly bizarre behavior, Kelly was sitting there eating jelly beans. Bethenny eventually screamed, “Go to sleep!” and Kelly’s expression while eating the jelly beans became one of the most recognizable images in RHONY history.

4. “Al Sharpton!”

Kelly’s train of thought during the Scary Island dinner was already impossible to follow, and then she suddenly brought up Al Sharpton. The conversation had absolutely nothing to do with him. It was another spectacular example of Kelly seemingly changing channels in the middle of a sentence. She was actually mixing up Johnnie Cochran and Al Sharpton, which somehow made the whole thing even more surreal.

5. Calling Alex a Vampire

Kelly looked at Alex McCord and decided she was giving off vampire vibes. This was during the same increasingly bizarre Scary Island dinner where Kelly was talking about nightmares and Bethenny killing her. Alex was understandably confused by the whole thing.

6. “Satchels of Gold”

Kelly’s Scary Island vocabulary deserves its own entry. At one point, she started talking about “satchels of gold,” another phrase that seemed to materialize from absolutely nowhere. Bravo itself still highlights “satchels of gold” as one of the memorable Kelly moments from the trip.

7. Telling Ramona to “Zip It”

During Scary Island, Ramona and Bethenny were trying to have a private conversation about their own disagreement. Kelly kept inserting herself into it, eventually telling Ramona to “zip it.” Ramona was understandably not interested in taking orders from Kelly, and the situation became another example of Kelly involving herself in conversations that had nothing to do with her.

8. Morocco: Ordering Alex to Close Her Eyes

Morocco gave us a completely different kind of Kelly insanity. Kelly was interacting with Alex and started telling her to close her eyes, then controlling when she could open them. She also shushed Alex and criticized her behavior. Alex later described Morocco as “mean,” contrasting it with Scary Island, which she considered crazy rather than deliberately cruel.

9. Morocco: Throwing Alex Out of the Dining Room

And then Kelly took it another step further by telling Alex to leave the dining room during dinner. Kelly had somehow appointed herself the authority over Alex, despite having absolutely no authority over Alex whatsoever. It was uncomfortable, bizarre and one of the clearest examples of Kelly’s behavior toward Alex during the Morocco trip.

10. “This Is You. This Is Me.”

Kelly’s feud with Bethenny had been brewing long before Scary Island. During their Season 2 confrontation, Kelly told Bethenny, “This is you. This is me,” while making a physical distinction between the two of them. She also insisted they weren’t friends and never would be. It was an extraordinarily condescending way to conduct a Housewives argument, which is precisely why it remains one of Kelly’s most memorable moments.

Kelly Bensimon didn’t need a decade-long Housewives career to become unforgettable. She gave us vampire Alex, satchels of gold, jelly beans, Al Sharpton, nightmares about Bethenny, and an entire Moroccan power struggle with Alex McCord. Very few Housewives have ever seemed so completely committed to operating on their own wavelength.