Real Housewives of NY: Meet Cindy Barshop

Three weeks from now, Bravo will (finally!) unleash the fourth season of the Real Housewives of New York City to the masses after postponing the show from its February premiere, which was due to the show still being in production. We haven't seen the NYC women since their tumultuous third season ended last June, which also marked the departure of Bethenny Frankel, who now has her own show on Bravo, Bethenny Ever After.

Even though the show has six women in the main cast, Frankel's departure still left a void that had to be filled. So Bravo producers found a replacement in Cindy Barshop, owner/founder of the Completely Bare salons. Barshop's popular hair removal spa/salon has locations not only in NYC, but in Palm Beach, Florida as well. In other words, Barshop is a self-made woman, which makes her fit right in with the rest of the NYC Housewives financially and socially. Now all we need to know is if she will hold her own in the inevitable catfights that will no doubt come her way.

As reported before, Barshop is the mother of twin girls, Jesse and Zoe, and is all about her business and her kids, which you can see for yourself in this clip of Barshop's NYC apartment.

At first glance of the apartment, you would think that Barshop was completely bohemian or just down to earth, an attribute that would possibly give fellow NYC Housewife LuAnn de Lesseps a rash on sight , but as they say, looks are most definitely deceiving. Barshop is very fashion forward, but has limited closet space and limited space in general. It wouldn't be a surprise if Barshop has a new place to live by the start of season five.

So are you guys ready for Cindy Barshop? And how much of a splash will the "new kid on the block" make in the Big Apple's batch of Real Housewives?

The Real Housewives of New York City fourth season premiere airs on April 7th @ 10/9c on Bravo.

Credit: TV Overmind (Mark O. Estes)

Kelly Bensimon Talks Bethenny & Cindy Barshop

Kelly Bensimon didn't exactly miss Bethenny Frankel while filming the new season of the Real Housewives of New York City.

You'd think it was because Bensimon was so over all their catfighting, but no...

"I only filmed with her a couple of times," Bensimon insisted to me earlier today. "I don't know her at all. I met her a couple of times. We create awesome television. But I wish her well. I don't know what else there is to say because I don't know her enough to say anything."

Frankel's replacement, hair removal queen Cindy Barshop, is a completely different story.

"Cindy's a rock star," Kelly gushed. "She really put the Housewives brand out of balance. She used to work at IBM. She's got 10 Completely Bare [hair removal spas] in New York alone. She's in her forties. She's got two unbelievable babies. She has an unbelievable family. She has set the bar so high."

Guess Bensimon really likes her.

"Who doesn't like a girl's girl who has it all, works her butt off and wears Martin Margiela?" she said. "She's hot, she's cool and she's easygoing."

Credit: E! Online (Marc Malkin)

Real Housewives of NY Premiere Date Finally Set

Get ready for more Big Apple drama, Housewives fans!

After a sudden schedule switcheroo in February that bumped the Real Housewives of New York City's fourth season premiere in favor of the Real Housewives of Miami's debut, the New York women finally have a premiere date.

Come April 7, Jill Zarin, Alex McCord, LuAnn de Lesseps, Ramona Singer, Kelly Bensimon, Sonja Morgan and newcomer Cindy Barshop will be back on the air, the network announced via their BravoTV.com The Dish blog Monday.

"From the gang's glamorous jaunt to Morocco, to our already-favorite dig "thug in a cocktail dress" (delivered by the ultimate messenger, Alex McCord), to the Countess finding love again, the new season will definitely be worth the wait," the Bravo blog post read.

Brooklyn-based cast member McCord agrees, and tells Us Magazine fans should clear their calendars for Thursday nights.

"I think this is definitely the best season so far," McCord tells Us. "[But] there was no way they were going to get [editing] done in time."

The Real Housewives of New York City premieres April 7 at 10 p.m. (EST) on Bravo.

Credit: Us Magazine

Alex McCord: "We Go to the Brink of Insanity!"

The Real Housewives are about to get real ugly.

Real Housewives of New York City star Alex McCord says this season viewers will see some extreme craziness go down—even with Bethenny Frankel and Jill Zarin's fighting done—because all is not rosy between the seasoned Housewives and new castmember Cindy Barshop.

"Oh, it's not one epic fight, it is 100 fights," McCord told us. "We're comfortable enough with each other now that it's no holds barred. I did not know Cindy before. You'll have to see what happens with her and everyone."

And where does her husband, Simon, fit in to all of this?

Simon says he's still pressing buttons, annoying the other wives—including Barshop—and, as usual, tagging along with his wife for this season.

"On Cindy all I can say it's really hard to come into a mature cast that has been around each other for four years," he told us today at the Cynthia Steffe show at Lincoln Center. "It takes a while to work out how to avoid the drama."

Alex says one incident reaches such madness that "you can't make up what happens."

"People go all the way to the brink of insanity and back and there and back again," she told us.

Bravo honcho and Watch What Happens host Andy Cohen also weighed in on the Housewives rumors from the front row at the Diane Von Fürstenberg show today. He assures us rumors of the show being pushed back because of problems with a boring plot are not true.

"It's great, it's an amazing season, we just wrapped three weeks ago, we really wanted to get it perfect and we had Miami sitting on the shelf," he told E! News. "It's great, we all love it. Bethenny and Jill had their own drama. What's interesting about the premiere is the dust is still settling on that feud so it's interesting to see how these women are picking it back up."

Credit: Marianne Garvey for E! Online