I'm Financial Expert Nicole Lapin. It's time for some money rehab.

This week we've talked to a rockstar economist and the most photographed guy on Wall Street.

And now it's time to go a little closer to home. Literally. We're going to the real housewives

of New York City. Today I'm chatting with Kelly Benzimone. To Rony

fans, Kelly is an icon from the two seasons she spent on the show over a decade ago.

Now she's a successful real estate agent who closed nine figures of sales in 2021 alone.

Of course, with real estate being such a hot topic, I wanted to get all of her inside

expertise. But there's another money trail I also wanted to follow. The money trail

of the real housewives. Full disclosure, I've never actually seen an episode of the housewives.

I know I'm probably the only person on the planet. But somehow I'm still hooked. Despite

not watching the show, I see all of these headlines about cast members who have gone bankrupt

or are embroiled in some kind of financial scandal. And my question is why? Why are there

so many housewives stars with financial skeletons in their closet? Seems to be a story there.

And I wanted to find out.

Kelly Benzimone, welcome to Money Rehab.

Thank you. I love that Money Rehab. That's such a great title.

Thank you. I think we're going to keep it. How did you start in real estate?

So I actually stumbled upon real estate. Unfortunately, my mom fell ill and I wanted me to help sell

our family properties and my father's older. So I oversaw that quickly got my license.

And was it really thinking that, you know, this is like just been million dollar listing

at GoOnline and I was just finished. I just retired from housewives getting my MBA. And I was

just like, and I just kind of stumbled into this because I had to do it. And so out of

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