They Sent Real Housewives Sonja Morgan and Luann de Lesseps to the Boonies—and They Survived

After 15 and 13 years, respectively, as cast members of Real Housewives of New York City, Luann de Lesseps and Sonja Morgan are experts at packing for lavish trips. They know how to cram into suitcases all the trappings to accommodate their quirky, pampered personalities while traveling together to the Hamptons, Mexico, Morocco, and, most famously, Scary Island—er, I mean St. Barts.

Cameras, of course, are always there to capture each wacky, can’t-make-this-up moment, be it an inebriated tumble into a rose bush, impromptu skinny dip, or insistence that a fellow Housewife “be cool, don’t be all, like, uncool” while being served home-cooked eggs à la française. Sunday night, the duo—a Laverne and Shirley of reality TV, if Laverne was a Countess and Shirley shared a hairbrush with her dog—is back on our screens again, returning to Bravo after the original RHONY veterans were replaced with a new cast of fresh faces.

When we first see them, they are once again getting ready for a trip. De Lesseps is fretting over all the choices she has to make, “because this is white and this is off-white,” she says, holding up two identical-looking belts—the Countess’ own Devil Wears Prada moment. At her infamous townhouse, Morgan is debating the best way to store the pads she needs to bring to sop up leaks from her recent liposuction procedure.

Amusingly odd as all of this sounds, it is par for the course when these Manhattan socialites are released from their gilded cages. The trip they’re planning for, however, is anything but typical.

Luann & Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake follows the buds as they move to a roadside motel in Benton, Illinois (population: 6,708) for six weeks. There, they’re given a series of tasks meant to help the town recover from the devastation that occurred during the pandemic. All the two know about Benton is that there are a lot of lakes—Crappie, pronounced kraw-pee, is named after a kind of bass fish—and that it is very hot there.

To wit, when their plane touches down on the Benton Airport runway, de Lesseps is startled to see a crowd gathered, screaming while waving signs. It turns out the Benton residents had come to greet the mystery celebrities. “Thank you for meeting us,” de Lesseps says, when she finally learns what the hoopla was about. “I thought there was rioting.” As for the heat? It’s just hours into their arrival when Morgan remarks, “It’s a three-panty day already.” (Good thing they’d done so much packing.)

Over the course of six weeks, the two are charged with community-building projects, like building a playground for underprivileged children, setting up a dog park at the animal shelter, increasing tourism, and staging an end-of-summer talent show—a task that the cabaret star and caburlesque performer are more than up for completing.

In fact, they’re surprisingly game for all of it, even spending their whole stay in a seedy motel that most of their Real Housewives sisters would meet with a Hitchcock scream of horror before passing out in judgmental disgust. “What’s the official name?” Morgan asks the owner, who replies, “The Benton Motel.” She nods in approval: “That’s good marketing.” These women are a comedy goldmine.

If it all sounds a little bit like A Simple Life, that’s definitely on purpose. Welcome to Crappie mastermind Jeff Jenkins, best known for executive producing Keeping Up With the Kardashians and its spinoffs, also produced the reality-TV hit where Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie traversed the country, living and mingling with regular folks. It was his idea to recruit de Lesseps and Morgan for their take on the format.

New York City, Benton is not, but de Lesseps and Morgan embraced their temporary home with gusto and grace. Just minutes into our Zoom call to discuss the series, the pair start alternately gushing and teasing each other about their first excursion: noodling for catfish, which means hopping into water, diving into the mud, and using your forearm for bait.

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“I caught a catfish this big with my bare hands!” de Lesseps exclaims, holding her hands about eight inches apart. Morgan raises her hands, too, stretching them about two inches further: “This big, Kevin. I feel like I’m at The Eagle,” she says, cheekily referencing New York’s gay bar, which has a certain reputation as a hook-up spot.

With Welcome to Crappie Lake premiering Sunday night—and Morgan recovered from apparently popping a liposuction suture while having sex in Benton—we chatted with de Lesseps and Morgan about defying stereotypical expectations, falling in love with the people of Benton, and the upcoming season of Bravo’s Ultimate Girls Trip, which has them returning to Scary Island itself.

I never thought I’d see Real Housewives noodling for catfish. What were your attitudes going into this, knowing you’d be doing things out of your comfort zones?

Morgan: Well, Luann is a tomboy. She’s up for anything. She grew up with four brothers. And I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty either. We’re both hardworking girls from small towns.

De Lesseps: Yeah, but you didn’t go down the barrel to wrangle a catfish, Sonja.

Morgan: I also pulled the guy’s third leg, and you didn’t. I used his leg to go down and guide myself to the catfish, but this other “third leg” kept swishing around, because he didn’t have tighty whities on. So I was too busy, Luann, to go after the catfish.

How much did it help to be doing this together? Do you think this is something you would have been game for if it wasn’t with each other?

Morgan: I couldn’t do it with anybody else. That’s one of the best things that came out of this. I saw that Luann and I could have fun, we could have differences, we could have resolution, and create a beautiful Benton Follies variety show—and just really inspire the town with our energy.

De Lesseps: You don’t know what you don’t know. So I didn’t know what I was in for. People used to always ask, “What are you expecting for the next season of RHONY?” I had no idea. All I knew about Benton was that it was very hot and they have lakes. I didn’t have any preconceived notions of what was going on when we got there. We were just there to help the town. I was like, you know what? We’re gonna go there. We’re going to help these people. We’re gonna live in a motel.

Morgan: I thought at least there was going to be a hotel pool or something. But we were just thrilled to be asked. We hadn’t filmed Real Housewives of New York for a while, because of everything.

I think the number one question people are going to have when they watch this is: Did you really stay in that motel for the whole time that you were there?

De Lesseps: Yes, we did. Wow. My brother, who’s a contractor from Connecticut, came down to help us out, because it needed paint. It needed new carpets, because the carpets were there from the 1960s. There were deer guts on the carpet. I would take a shower, walk to the bed, and my feet were dirty. So I was never so happy to see a Walmart in my life, because I went to get throw rugs so I could walk from carpet to carpet to get into bed.

Was it more fun when the people of Benton knew who you were, or when they had no idea who you were?

Morgan: Luann, would you say half of them knew who we were?

De Lesseps: Half of them knew who we were and the other half had no idea. It was interesting because they had trepidation about us coming into their town. Like, who are these women? What are they gonna do for us? It took a while for them to trust that we were there to do good for their town. We weren’t there to make fun of them. It was not about that. We were there to help build their community even stronger.

Morgan: We would never have wasted their time.

Timing is everything. I imagine it didn’t feel great when your time on RHONY ended. How did it feel when this came around? Did it feel like a demotion? Did it feel like a major opportunity?

Morgan: We didn’t feel it was a demotion at all. They handpicked the two of us out of all of the Housewives. We knew this was big when Jeff Jenkins called. He’s not going to have egg on his face, let’s just say that. We felt really special. And also it was fun. It’s light. It’s not drama all the time.

And you just filmed Ultimate Girls Trip. What did it feel like to go from your easier, funnier dynamic and life in Benton to Housewives mode again to film UGT?

Morgan: I didn’t feel the transition at all because we are real friends. We’ve been friends for decades. So when Lu and I went to Benton, we were like an old married couple. Then when we went to Ultimate Girls Trip, I was just so happy to be with Lu again, and Ramona and Dorinda. We have that real friendship. So no, it wasn’t that bad of a transition, because we know we have a trust level there. I can tell Ramona that her face looks like a pizza with no cheese, and she’s not going to stop talking to me. We have that. And I have that with Luann and Dorinda as well. I think both shows are going to be fabulous.

De Lesseps: It’s a different experience. But being with the Housewives after this just makes you appreciate how lucky we are to travel like that and go to beautiful places like St. Barts. We’re in the middle of Illinois, next to Kentucky, like the Deep South. It’s obviously not our lifestyle. But going into Housewives after this show, in particular, we were proud of ourselves. We went into that town and we really helped people out and they appreciated it. They have big hearts. We made a lot of friends along the way. We had a lot of fun.

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And then we went to St. Barts. When we’re all together like that, there's no comparison, really. It’s Ultimate Girls Trip—going on vacation with the ultimate girls that you want to go with. That’s how I feel about it. We had the best time. There always is gonna be drama. It’s a little Scary Island Part 2. There’s a pirate coming in again.

And you got to arrive at St. Barts with a badge of honor: “We did this thing in Benton, and we survived and we thrived there.” I can’t imagine Ramona Singer doing Welcome to Crappie Lake.

Morgan: There’s just no way.

De Lesseps: No way. “Who’s carrying my bag?”

Morgan: The comforter is synthetic, not 600 thread count sheets like Ramona would demand. But we did it, Lu!

De Lesseps: We really worked so hard. I mean, St. Barts was a dream come true. We got catered to. In Benton, we catered to them. We lost our lives for six weeks, and it was dedicated to these people. We didn’t have any time to think about us. I got on the plane back. I’m like, “Oh my God. I’m still Lu.” Because we really did dedicate our lives for six weeks to these people.

Morgan: We were happy to be home. Back in our big four poster beds and big bathtubs and have a little space to ourselves. But it was very sad, very tearful when we left Benton. We did make really good friends there.

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