Is Tinsley Mortimer Joining RHONY As A Full-Time Cast Member For Season 9?

It was reported last week that socialite Tinsley Mortimer was spotted filming scenes for the upcoming ninth season of The Real Housewives of New York City. Mortimer is reportedly the new cast member of the Bravo hit reality series, replacing last season's newcomer Jules Wainstein, who decided to exit the show after one season to focus on her children and messy divorce.

But the question still remains, is Tinsley Mortimer joining the show as a full-time cast member or as a "friend of the housewives?"

According to sources, her role on the Bravo hit reality show is still uncertain. “Tinsley is now staying with Sonja Morgan [at her Upper East Side townhouse],” an insider tells Us Weekly about Mortimer, who has been filming for several weeks and recently shot scenes in the Hamptons the weekend of November 5. “She is filming as Sonja’s friend. Sonja is responsible for introducing Tinsley to the rest of the cast.”

Despite her involvement, it remains undetermined if Mortimer will be given a golden apple. “Producers will determine if she will officially join the cast in the coming weeks,” claims the source.

The Columbia graduate — who split from her businessman husband, Robert Livingston Mortimer, in 2009 after seven years of marriage — opened up to Harper’s Bazaar this past September about her one-season stint on the short-lived 2010 CW reality series High Society.

"People already loved to hate me, and then my show wasn't successful, so instead of saying, 'Oh, well, she tried,' it was tarnish, tarnish, tarnish," Mortimer, who left Manhattan for tony Palm Beach, Florida, in 2013, told the publication. "I didn't even want to go out anymore — I didn't want to do anymore. I was tired."

However, Mortimer made headlines back in April when she was arrested in Palm Beach for trespassing on the property of her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Alexander "Nico" Fanjul. She was released at around 8:30 p.m. that night after she was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail on the misdemeanor charge.

Mortimer has since relocated to the Big Apple. She explained to Harper’s Bazaar that the experience was embarrassing but ultimately eye-opening.

"I went down to Palm Beach, and I was just walking away from everything. I just wanted to get away. I wanted to start over. I met this guy, and I thought I could. It basically took public humiliation for me to understand what I was going through because I was so caught in this cycle that I really did not know what was going on,” the former It Girl said. "I'm human, and we make mistakes. My biggest mistake was that I was running away from something here in New York and I ran into the wrong hands."

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