Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

It's been a busy month for Bethenny Frankel. First she got engaged to her boyfriend Jason Hoppy; then, a couple of weeks ago, she confirmed she's a little more than two months pregnant. With the Real Housewives of New York City currently filming its third season, we thought it would be worthwhile to get some parenting advice for the mom-to-be from one of her costars. So, naturally, we reached out to model-cum-designer Kelly Killoren Bensimon—a mom with two daughters of her own, Sea, 11, and Teddy, nine—to offer parenting tips for Bethenny. Kelly's advice, thoughts on women who breast-feed in public, and why she wears shorter skirts now than ever before is below. Join us, won't you? More

• One of Madonna's neighbors has filed a lawsuit against their building's co-op board for not doing anything about the "pounding noise and vibration" emanating from Madge's triplex, which the neighbor says has been doubling as a "dance rehearsal studio." The good news is Madonna is moving in the near future, so the angry tenant should soon be able to go back to complaining about her other neighbor who just plays the radio too loud. [NYDN, AP]
• Lindsay Lohan avoided jail time but had her probation extended by a year last week when a judge ruled that she hadn't completed an alcohol treatment program. Then she went out to a party in the Meatpacking district this weekend and actually stayed sober. What a delightful surprise! [P6]
• Bethenny Frankel is engaged to her boyfriend of 11 months, Jason Hoppy. "She is very much a handful," Hoppy said, "She needs a man that can handle her, and that I can." More power to you, sir. [People]More

Kelly Bensimon Reflects | Bruce Wasserstein, the Wall Street titan who died yesterday at the age of 61, was a brilliant man, clearly, and the man who "helped pioneer the hostile takover in the 1980s and reshaped the mergers and acquisitions business into high art," as New York Times reporters Andrew Ross Sorkin and Michael de la Merced put it their excellent Wasserstein obit today. But how did he supposedly teach Kelly Killoren Bensimon of the Real Housewives of New York City to go against the grain and be her own person? We haven't the faintest clue. But we're going to venture to guess that if she can't spell his name correctly, she probably didn't spend much time in a Lazard conference room plotting hostile takeovers either. [Twitter]

Reality TV stars artfully bare their souls on camera and in the tabloids, and even better, they do it all without a script. But a TV show is only the first step to building a brand, and now countless pseudo-celebs are milking their 15 minutes and peddling products that you couldn't possibly live without. (Or so they say!) We compiled the most promising items from the brightest minds in faux-showbiz. With these ladies' designs in your style arsenal, your look will never be the same.More

• Bethenny Frankel isn't going to be happy about this one bit, but her Real Housewives of New York City co-star, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, is going to appear semi-nude in the December issue of Playboy. The 40-year-old reality TV star won't have to worry about competing with the women almost half her age who normally grace the magazine's pages: The photos were reportedly taken by her ex-husband, photographer Gilles Bensimon, "several years ago." [In Touch, P6]
• Jennifer Aniston was reportedly in tears over a scene for her flick The Bounty because it reminded her of Brad Pitt. The actress supposedly pulled it together to shoot her lines, but the source said, "privately she is still very fragile." Her rep denies it ever happened. But if it did happen, Jen probably needs a better therapist. [P6]
• Topper Mortimer and his girlfriend, Vogue editor Valerie Boster hit the New Yorkers for Children Fall Gala on Tuesday night... as did Topper's ex, Tinsley. Val was reportedly "not happy," but luckily, they all weren't seated together so there was no WASP throwdown. [P6]More

Just when you thought another person couldn't get in on all the Gossip Girl action, designer Anna Sui unveiled a line for Target inspired by none other than Gossip Girl. On Wednesday evening, Target previewed the collection at a Soho townhouse-turned-pop-up shop for a group of Anna's friends, GG cast members like Blake Lively, Taylor Momsen, Michelle Trachtenberg, Penn Badgley and Jessica Szohr, members of the press, and assorted boldfaced names. Cityfile correspondent Douglas Marshall caught up with Real Housewives of New York City star Kelly Killoren Bensimon to chat about Gossip Girl and other important stuff like preparing for Fashion Week and achieving the perfect tan.More

Spotted | Olivia Palermo and boyfriend Johannes Huebl leaving the Apple store in SoHo ... Mischa Barton arriving on the set of The Beautiful Life with a cigarette in her mouth, and Elle Macpherson walking in front of her trailer on the set of the same movie ... Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian leaving their hotel ... Kelly Killoren Bensimon posing for a photo shoot downtown ... Jerry Springer walking inside his hotel in Midtown ... Karina Smirnoff posing for photographers outside Live with Regis and Kelly ... actress Ashley Madekwe walking in the Village ... Blake Lively shooting scenes for Gossip Girl ... Rachel McAdams getting out of an SUV ... Renee Zellweger wrapped up in a blanket for an Elle photo shoot at Griffin ... and Rosanna Arquette and daughter Zoe Sidel hanging out at The Pretenders concert in Central Park.

• Is Andre Balazs the latest man to fall victim to Kelly Bensimon's feminine charms? Life & Style reports the hotelier and the "housewife" were seen getting cozy in Miami recently. [L&S]
• Kiefer Sutherland is in the clear. Prosecutors have dropped charges against him in connection with his assault on Jack McCollough back in May, since the designer has proved to be an "uncooperative witness." [NYDN]
• Mischa Barton is still in the hospital and may lose the role on the TV show that she was supposed to start filming this week. So what made her snap? In addition to all the drug stuff, she may be suffering from body image issues, too. [Sun, People]
• Ruth Madoff was supposedly spotted at LaGuardia en route to visit her husband in jail. And she was supposedly wearing ripped jeans, too. [P6]More

Spotted | Ivanka Trump talking on her cell phone ... Elijah Wood walking in SoHo with girlfriend Pamela Racine ... Jay-Z scowling at a photographer in the Garment District ... Heidi Klum holding her son's hand after leaving dinner at Cipriani Downtown ... Gerard Butler shooting scenes for The Bounty in the West Village ... Joan Rivers leaving a movie theater uptown ... Liev Schreiber walking by himself downtown ... Maria Bello drinking wine outdoors ... Drew Barrymore and Justin Long hanging out on the set of Going the Distance in Brooklyn ... Kelly Clarkson signing autographs outside her hotel in Midtown ... and Kelly Bensimon jogging in the West Village.

The Real Housewives of New York City are back in the news (not that they ever left, really), since production on the next season of the show has been held up while four of the five ladies  bicker with Bravo over how much they're going to get paid. The only one who's agreed to participate thus far? That would be Kelly Bensimon, the least-liked member of the cast, at least according to the poll on Bravo's website. We'll all have to hope the dispute is resolved shortly and Kelly gets to reunite with her castmates in the near future. But in the meantime—and because we know you want to keep Kelly by your side all summer long—we took a bit of audio from her totally insane interview with ObsessedTV and turned her into a 12-second ringtone. Just because your fave NYC housewives won't be on the air for the next few months doesn't mean you can't be reminded of Kelly's generous spirit every time your phone rings. (Oh, and yes: that is the Exorcist theme playing in the background. For some odd reason, we though it was fitting.) Click here to download the ringtone. Or click on Kelly's pic above. Enjoy!

Kelly Bensimon Ringtone [MP3 download]
Kelly Bensimon Interview [ObsessedTV.com]
Previous ringtones: Anna Wintour & André Leon Talley, Isaac Mizrahi, Padma Lakshmi, Bernie Madoff.

BusinessWeek conducted a little investigation recently and discovered that while a number of prominent CEOs have joined social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn over the past few years, very few had managed to make many friends. What about New York's population of socialites and do-nothing fameseekers? Naturally, they have no trouble making friends when it comes to Facebook. But that isn't the case with business-centric LinkedIn, where many of them lead lonely online existences and—worst of all—they've been forced to actually fill something in under the headers "job title" and "employer." How can you possibly be expected to have either if you spend your days sleeping and your evenings out at parties? A few examples—including Annabel Vartanian and Alex McCord (left)—after the jump. More

Kelly Bensimon won't have to serve any time for punching her former boyfriend in the face back in March. This morning she accepted a deal that will put the charges to bed (and allow her to eventually purge her record), provided she complete two days of community service and stay out of trouble. The plea puts the humiliating episode behind her, although a little bit more humilation ended up following her out of the courtroom: As reporters and photographers followed her down Centre Street, one "puzzled passerby" was overheard on her cell phone telling a friend that she'd spotted Countess LuAnn de Lesseps. Poor thing. Nevertheless, Kelly seems to be pleased with the outcome. She says "justice was served," and the ordeal even appears to have provided her with a new cause to focus her attention on: More

The Cinema Society and Details magazine hosted a screening of The Hangover last night at the Tribeca Grand, which was followed by an afterparty at the Soho Grand. Details editor Dan Peres, Cinema Society's Andrew Saffir, and Bradley Cooper and Justin Bartha, who both appear in the film, welcomed Rachel Roy, Amy Sacco (left), Nicole Miller, Will Arnett, Zach Braff, Gerard Butler, Molly Sims, Chris Meloni, Caroline Rhea, Alan Cumming, Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss, Albert Hammond Jr., Jill Hennessy, Jesse Eisenberg, Hilary Rhoda, Dan Abrams, Danny Masterson, Byrdie Bell, Kelly Bensimon, Rob and Marisol Thomas, Caroline Winberg, and Doutzen Kroes, Alexandra Richards, and Paula Abdul. [PMC, WWD, Wireimage, VF] More

• Are Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick planning to leave the West Village behind? That's what Britain's Daily Mirror is reporting today, although the story seems to be based on the fact a moving truck happened to be parked outside the couple's townhouse yesterday (maybe Broderick was just rid of some old furniture?), so you may want to take the news with a grain of salt. [DM]
• Mariah Carey had some issues with her stylist in Cannes last week. But she walked away with "millions of free diamonds" when she stopped off in Turkey this past weekend, so hopefully that made up for the inconvenience. [P6]
• Kanye West says he doesn't read books or have any respect for books. But he's just written one that he'd really like you to buy and read. [Reuters]
• Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter, Exodus Tyson, died yesterday following her treadmill accident on Monday. [Us] More

The Real Housewives of New York City concluded its season a couple of weeks ago, but if you're thirsting for more of Kelly Bensimon, Obsessed TV has you covered. Kelly rambles on for close to 30 minutes with host Samantha Ettus and explains, among other things, how she's really responsible for making her ex-husband, Gilles Bensimon, the famed photographer he is today; attributes the demise of her marriage to "political infighting" at Elle and the "success" of her 2004 book American Style (which, she says, changed the fashion industry forever); and explains that her ex-boyfriend—the one that she allegedly assaulted—is just "a boy that needs a lot of love." At least her doing a decent job in the parenting department: When one of her kids tells her that she's famous, she explains that she's "infamous for my antics, but not famous." [ObsessedTV.com]