The Real Housewives of New York City star Luann de Lesseps made headlines late last year after her Christmas Eve arrest for drunkenly assaulting a police officer at a hotel in Florida. Even more eyebrows were raised when it was later revealed that she pleaded not guilty to the three remaining charges and planned to let a jury trial decide her fate. The decision was a bit surprising because it seemed like the evidence was indisputable, including a video released by Palm Beach Police of Luann’s arrest in which she was obviously heavily intoxicated as she slipped her cuffs before repeatedly telling an officer “I’ll kill you!”
Luann recently appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, and she may have revealed her defense team’s strategy for the trial: namely that she might have been drugged by someone!
Here’s the clip with Luann from The Dr. Oz Show in which she recounts her day of drinking before revealing the theory about being drugged:
Here is a full transcript of what Luann says in the clip, and it sounds like she admits to drinking at least a full bottle of wine and two martinis prior to the incident:
So I was going to a wedding in Chile. Some friends of mine, their daughter was getting married in Chile, so I planned to go down and fly from Miami.
“And so I checked into the Colony, to make a long story short. I had a rosé at lunch with my girlfriend, we split a bottle of Whispering Angel, which is normal. And then there were some people there that were fans, so they send me more rosé. So I drank more than I usually would.
Then we went to Julie’s, and on the way, we stop and have not one martini but two. So, by the time I get back to the Colony, I was pretty sloshed.
And then, I don’t know, I gotta tell you Dr. Oz, that’s kind of a regular kind of thing, you know what I mean? In terms of the drinking path that I was on. So, I almost think that somebody slipped me something, because I don’t remember a thing after that!
Despite not being able to remember a thing, Luann later recounts what transpired in her hotel room after police were called in another clip posted by the show’s Twitter account:
Today, @CountessLuann of @BravoTV's Real Housewives of NY is here breaking her silence on her recent arrest. Plus, she talks about her divorce and whether or not she considers herself an alcoholic. Be sure to join us. #RHONY pic.twitter.com/dWDCOCyuKI
— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) May 9, 2018
Transcript:
What happened was, they come now to arrest me! Now, I’m a drunk woman in a hotel room. In my own hotel, but not — the wrong room, granted. [laughs] That’s true. But, so they come after me and I was drunk so I wasn’t equipped to handle it. And I got scared. And I ran like a child to the bathroom. OK? And so I locked myself in the bathroom. [laughs]
So then, [the officer] tried to open the door. And he opened the door, and then I closed the door and it hit him in the forehead. So that’s battery that I did on a police officer.
Luann then concedes to the charges of being drunk and disorderly as well as resisting arrest. “Yes, it’s all true. It’s ridiculous, but it’s true.”
Luann’s trial is scheduled for later this month, so I checked with the county clerk to see if there have been any recent motions filed by the defense that might further indicate they would try to claim that Luann had been drugged. The only new information I could find is that the prosecution filed a motion of discovery for jail cell footage.
I really cannot imagine that Luann’s defense is going to let a jury decide her fate on this. A wealthy reality star who admits to drinking A LOT before going to the wrong hotel room to hook up with a man, before then refusing to leave the room and slamming a police officer’s head in a door? Plus, there is the rather condemning video of Luann being arrested, not to mention any additional footage from the jail cell or perhaps even from her hotel room via an officer’s body cam? I just don’t see a “maybe I was drugged” defense having any sway over an inevitable guilty verdict in this situation. It’s exactly two weeks away, and I am still putting my money on a plea deal just before the trial begins.
We will certainly keep our eyes on the case for any major development prior to the scheduled trial on May 25, so stay tuned!
Asa Hawks is a writer and editor for Starcasm.
