Countess LuAnn de Lesseps signs contract for RHONY Season 6

Real Housewives of New York City Season 6 cast

Money can buy you class after all! After months of much-publicized contract disputes and delays in filming it appears as though Bravo has reassembled The Real Housewives of New York City cast from Season 5 in its entirety for Season 6! The last piece remaining after Avivia Drescher signed on a couple weeks ago was Countess LuAnn de Lesseps, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, she ended her holdout “and will rejoin production immediately.”

But before you get too excited about binging on LuAnn’s signature hoity-toityness, you should know that a source for THR reveals that “the latest contract on the table for de Lesseps was for a less-prominent role.” Yes, there is a good chance she might be demoted to Bravo’s second-class title of “Friend of the Housewives.” It is also believed that Aviva Drescher may be returning in a “friend” capacity as well. I suppose we will just have to wait and see.

Countess LuAnn de Lesseps of The Real Housewives of New York City

Maybe it’s just me but I’m beginning to think all this off-season casting rumor stuff is all manufactured by Bravo as a way to sustain interest in the drama during the shows’ offseasons. As a celebrity blogger who “reports” on lots of the rumors and “inside sources” I have to confess I feel like quite the chump. Both New York and New Jersey were supposedly going to be revamping their casts with all sorts of turnover, generating a seemingly endless stream of headlines about who was in and who was out, with both shows eventually winding up with the exact same casts as the season before. If that is the case (and I’m being quite serious when I suggest that it is) then I tip my hat to them and say, “Well played Bravo. Well played indeed.”

That being said, who’s excited and who’s disappointed by the entire cast of The Real Housewives of New York City returning for Season 6?