Real Housewives of New York star Dorinda Medley is slamming claims made by Queer Eye’s Bobby Berk that a cast member from the show once stole from his store in NYC.
Bobby, 38, made the claims earlier this month on The Jenny McCarthy Show alleging that a mystery housewife once pressured him into decorating her home for free, and even claimed she ‘scammed’ his employees into giving her free goods from his store.
While Bobby didn’t give a name, RHONY’s Dorinda, 55, has spoken up after there were rumors circulating that the housewife in question was former castmate Aviva Drescher.
Outraged! Dorina Medley is seen getting irked by claims made by Queer Eye’s Bobby Berk about a RHONY castmember stealing from him… as she appears on Chanel In The City
DailyMail.com has reached out to representatives for Aviva regarding the matter.
During an interview with Chanel In The City Dorina tells host Chanel Omari: ‘Here’s the thing, say who it is, or don’t say it at all. I don’t do riddles.’
‘Then you’re painting the picture pretty wide and then you’re putting a negative picture on a lot of housewives. I don’t fire sideways, I fire straight,’ Dorinda added, seeming to get annoyed with the rumor mill going into overdrive.
Reality world! Bobby Berks, 38, claims he has become ‘very picky’ about the type of clients he works with, and it’s due in part to a run-in with a Real Housewife Of New York star years ago
Rumors: Dorinda has denied rumors that the housewife in question was Aviva Drescher
However, Dorinda admitted that she’s not close to the reality star, saying: ‘I don’t know Aviva that well, I met her a couple of times… She was always perfectly nice to me, so I know nothing about her background.’
Dorinda repeatedly challenged Bobby tell reveal who he claims stole from him, and said: ‘Tell a story about me instead!’
Bobby explained recently that he became ‘very picky’ about the type of clients he works with, due in part to the alleged run-in with the star he didn’t name.
Spilling tea: During an interview with Chanel In The City Dorina tells host Chanel Omari: ‘Here’s the thing, say who it is, or don’t say it at all. I don’t do riddles.’
Not having it: Dorinda blasted Bobby for the ‘terrible timing’ and thinks he should just come out and say who it is
‘Celebrities can be a pain in the a** sometimes,’ the Texas native confessed during an appearance on The Jenny McCarthy Show.
He added, ‘A lot of times there can be some that expect everything for free,’ and then went on to recount his not-so-pleasant encounter with the unnamed Housewife who he said eventually ‘stole from his store.’
It all started out on a high note when the Housewife asked to work with Berk, who hadn’t been on television at this point.
From good to bad: The Queer Eye star claimed he made a deal with the RHONY star to be paid at a cost rate to design her new home, but she later had her husband call him and try to bully him into doing it for free
‘I had a New York Housewife come into my store years ago in New York, and [she] was like, oh, I’m buying this new place,’ he began, which piqued McCarthy’s interest.
‘Turns out, of course, she wasn’t buying it. She didn’t even own the last one she had on the show that she said she owned. She’s like, I want you to come in and design it all. I’m gonna put you on the show.’
‘And I wasn’t on TV yet. I still kind of liked the Housewives, so I was like, oh, okay, but just so you know, I’m not doing it for free. I don’t need to do it for free. I don’t necessarily know if the Housewives is really the exposure I want anyways, so I’ll do it for you at cost. And she’s like, okay, okay, that works.’
Berk maintained everything seemed to be going well, and on the up-and-up, until one day when the reality star’s husband called him and tried to bully him into doing the work for free.
‘Finally I was like, you know what? I’m not only not doing it for free, I’m not doing it anymore. I don’t need this,’ he explained.
‘She came into my store the next week when I wasn’t there and told my staff that I had said she could take anything out of the store that she wanted to design her house for the shoot and here was her credit card and if I don’t bring anything back, if I like something, you can just charge the credit card.’
It turns out his employees had no idea he wasn’t working with the RHONY star anymore, and proceeded to give her whatever she wanted,’ Berk said before adding,’ ‘She cleaned the store out.’
It wasn’t until many months later, when Berk was rummaging through the store’s inventory, that he realized what was missing. He confronted the employees about certain items, which they responded, ‘Oh, they’re at blah-blah-blah’s house.’
He continued: ‘And you could tell by the way they paused that they knew they had f***ed up. They knew they had been scammed. Because apparently, months went by and they called and they called and they called, and when they could not get any response, they tried to charge the card, and of course, it was declined.’
Berk later confronted the Housewife about the incident and told her she ‘literally stole’ from his store, but apparently that didn’t faze her one bit. Berk even claimed she threatened to take him to court, all in the name of TV ratings.
However, he did not reveal the name and so far there has been no evidence to say who it is, aside from Dorinda responding to rumours that it was Aviva.