The mark of a promising reality TV star is that you watch them and think, “Oh, she’d be a blast to gossip with.” A really great reality TV star is someone for whom, when you do have that opportunity, that turns out to be true.
May you all one day have as much fun as I did gossiping with Kimi Murdoch from Ladies of London: The New Reign.
The series deserves to be the crown jewel of Bravo. Ladies of London is essentially an accented cross-Atlantic cousin of Real Housewives, in which a group of British aristocrats and a few Anglophile expats attempt to navigate a maze of teas, garden parties, and their own egos without disturbing the fascinators on their heads.
Kimi is the group’s resident provocateur. Originally from Miami, she’s a Haitian American shipping heiress, a true cosmopolitan. She’s a single mother and an antiques dealer, who boasts that her “special skill is drinking champagne”—a talent she shows off often on the series.
She arrives on the show with decades of friendship and history with several members of the main cast, whose dizzying biographies should make any reality TV fan’s head spin.
Lady Emma Thynn is the Marchioness of Bath and the first woman of color to marry into British aristocracy (take that, Meghan Markle). Part of her duties include running Longleat, the $205 million, 100,000-acre estate that houses an actual safari park, making the recent episode of Ladies of London the first to feature a cast fight in front of hippos.
Martha Lady Sitwell grew up wealthy, became homeless, was discovered by Vivienne Westwood, got married (multiple times), got divorced (multiple times), lost her wealth, and now lives with a magpie who s--ts all over her townhouse. She’s a delight.
And then there’s Mark-Francis Vandelli, the heir to a family fortune who openly guffawed during a dinner where the host congratulated all of the guests on being self-made. He’s the first openly gay man to be a full-time cast member of a series like this, and, in all his b----y glory, earns his keep.
Kimi stirs the pot among this group of friends as if she were a stand mixer operating on hyperspeed, leading to some uproarious rumor mongering, whispering behind people’s backs, and necessary conflict, but also very emotional truths coming to light.
It was a blast to dig into it all during a conversation that covers everything from the cast member who quit on camera in the very first episode, what it’s like to watch what’s happening in America from abroad, and, most crucially, whether or not cast member Margo Stilley’s fashion is really that bad.
This story appears on the Obsessed by Kevin Fallon Substack. To read the rest, head to Substack.
