RHONY PHONY

Real Housewife Busted Doing a Dine-and-Dash at Schmancy D.C. Eatery

Luann de Lesseps bolted down her food and bolted out the door, though she did pay her outstanding $500 bill a few days later.

Real Housewives of New York star Luann de Lesseps wiggled out of a restaurant tab of more than $500 last week, dining and dashing from a swanky Washington restaurant after stepping out for a supposed “cigarette” break. De Lesseps was in town for her traveling Christmas cabaret show, creatively titled A Very Countess Christmas, New York magazine reported Tuesday. The Countess, as de Lesseps is known, stopped into famous brasserie Le Diplomate with a coterie of chums on Friday night. Her party ordered a seafood tower and what New York called a “copious” amount of Grey Goose vodka, then stepped out the door into the night—never to return. “We were there for another hour or so and she never came back,” a witness seated at a nearby table said.

De Lesseps eventually paid her outstanding bill on Monday, after New York said its reporter called her publicist. She tipped 22 percent, according to a copy of her receipt. In a statement, de Lesseps kept it light, saying, “I enjoyed a beautiful dinner after my sold-out show at a great restaurant, with my team, and there was an unfortunate misunderstanding which was resolved immediately and ‘All I Wanted for Christmas?’ was a seafood tower.”