Review | Who is Sonja Morgan?
Review | Who is Sonja Morgan?
So, I’ve been watching The Real Housewives of New York City with Vincent and we’ve been really enjoying seeing all of the different crazy personalities from the various women. However, one person I truly just do not understand is this train-wreck named Sonja Morgan – New York.
Who is this Sonja Morgan?
Some basics to start us off on this discussion:
Who is Sonja Morgan? In my mind, a drunk, sex-addicted, delusional woman who is basically white trash except that she carries a collection of Kellys and Birkins; however, according to more objective parties, like Bravotv.com, a former model. She is notorious for being one of the women in RHONY from Season 2 –
Who is Sonja Morgan’s ex-husband? According to Bustle.com, Sonja’s ex-husband is John Adams Morgan, the son of a very wealthy New York family who has ties to Chase bank.
How old is Sonja Morgan? 56 years old, born in 1963.
What is Sonja Morgan’s net worth? According to celebritynetworth.com, Sonja is worth a total of $8m, which is among the lowest of any of the Real Housewives.
There were two things that stood out to me about her as we were watching the show: 1) her net worth and 2) her wild proclamations of being so incredibly fabulous.
Net Worth
I am not someone who shames anyone for what they don’t have and I certainly didn’t think any type of way about Sonja when her Chapter 11 was made so public to the world. I didn’t even think much of it that when she was running around planning ‘fabulous’ parties and rocking these insanely expensive bags that she should really sell so that she can scrap her life together. (For those who don’t know, a single Birkin has a retail price of over $13,000 — and you’ll see her on the show with at least 3-4.)
She is the prime example of entitled, white privilege and it’s fascinating to watch her unravel on the show.
The real inflection point where I started to really pity her is in season 5, when Aviva Drescher calls her ‘white trash’ and says that she reminds Aviva of Annie Nicole Smith. My pity wasn’t because I thought that Aviva was incorrect — it was that those comments were absolutely spot on. Sonja is the prime example of someone people who come into money and let it get completely to their head.
An entitled, pampered woman, you’ll get to see her self-destruct in the show and basically make you vomit when she name-drops all of these people she supposedly parties with. I think the saddest thing of that is that she has these fantasies (or perhaps memories) of being among the stars but it’s very similar to how tech people label themselves with ‘ex-Google’, ‘ex-Airbnb’ — meaning that the best of their life is behind them. Yet, it’s clear in the show that Sonja still genuinely believes that she is still as cool and as wealthy as she was when she was married.
Of the women in the show, despite all of the yachts/international homes/fabulous clothes that she claims that she has, her net worth is actually less than the price of the townhouse that she has been clinging onto. And of the ‘team’ that she claims to have working for her around the clock (she laughably refers to her lawyers, the person who does her pedicures at the place she does them at, a facialist who works on her face among many in the day, all as people who work for her to support her delusion), most of them are unpaid interns that schools have allocated to support her supposed business. It’s beyond me that schools would call packing her bags and helping her pour wine experience that they could give credit for; I feel bad for those kids thinking that their school is looking out for them. But, nonetheless, this imaginary team that she has is what she attributes her success to. I’m still waiting to see what success she is referring to.
Fabulousness
I’m also not someone to drunk-shame people for having a good time. I believe that if you have it, you should get it. However, in the show, you’ll see that she is the completely opposite of anything fabulous — between her sexcapades with all of the men in Manhattan (from old to young), forgetting to wear her pants in public, and drunkenly sprawling around at bars/clubs. One thing that I wonder is if she watches herself when the season airs because it’s very clear to me that she has short-term memory loss and replays back scenes completely different than what you see objectively in the clips.
In the show, a lot of the women attribute the downward-spiral to her failed marriage and depression of her financial problems but the clearest thing about Sonja is that she does not live in the real world. As she lists out her various businesses and friends, all of the women don’t hesitate to check her and try to bring her back down to Earth.
Perhaps the most vile behavior of the entire series is when she approaches one of the women who works in fashion, Heather Tomson, in Season 4 and after Heather spends time out of her work week to help her with a campaign for her toaster oven. She seemingly agrees and takes in the help, referring to herself consistently as Heather’s client — but not paying a dime for the service. The worst part is when she nods her head in excitement when the campaign team is in the room with Heather but then behind her back tells Ramona that she’s displeased, which causes more rifts. Later, in the reunion, we learn that Sonja basically spits on Heather’s efforts by bringing logos from her fans to show the other women of what she wanted originally that Heather didn’t deliver on. None of the other cast members, including Ramona who usually jumps to her side, says a word because it’s just the most appalling behavior.
General Conclusion
Of the women in the show, she’s the most interesting to watch and at $495,000 per season for the amount of entertainment that she brings, she’s probably a deal of a lifetime for Bravo’s RHONY franchise. At some point in Season 7, she trumps Ramona for the craziest housewife and actually makes Ramona look like the sanest woman of the bunch.
My favorite thing about her is that she starts off looking very polished (likely a result of her extensive ‘team’ of 35 interns, make-up artists, etc) and then by the end of a segment or clip she ends up looking like a cheap prostitute fumbling over herself. You can tell that there’s a lot of time and work that goes into setting up the look but it all goes to hell once that first glass of wine is poured.
Have you watched the show? What do you think? Drop me a note if you think my assessment is whack — but forgive me, I’m only in Season 7 so give me some time to catch up on the remaining 4 seasons!