“Real Housewives of Melbourne” star Jackie Gillies and husband Ben Gillies at the premiere tasting of their vodka La Mascara. Picture: Tim Carrafa Source: News Corp Australia
SOMETHING is very wrong with this picture. On one side of Melbourne in fashionable Windsor, psychic rock star wife Jackie and husband Ben Gillies are hosting a “premiere tasting” of their La Mascara pre-made vodka cocktails.
Meanwhile, at the other side of town, high society event supremos Chyka and Bruce Keebaugh are throwing a cocktail party for A-list Melbourne to show off a new event space at the Paris end of Collins St.
Had this been an action-packed episode of The Real Housewives Of Melbourne, such an obvious diary clash would have produced so many diva turns that the poor cameraman would have surely collapsed in a dizzy heap. The “housewives” would have been arguing about it for weeks.
But with the RHOM reunion shows done and dusted (host Alex Perry is still recovering from all the turmoil) and the second series not yet in production, the cast members including Andrea Moss, Gina Liano, Lydia Schiavello, Janet Roach, Gillies and Keebaugh, are putting as much distance between each other as possible.
It’s not that, with perhaps one or two exceptions, they can’t stand the sight of each other; it’s just that the last thing they need to do is hang out at each other’s parties if the cameras aren’t rolling.
“We were all lumped together for eight months, but in a good way. Now it’s time to concentrate on our different businesses,” Keebaugh says.
Jackie said her co-stars weren’t invited because she wanted the function to be all about herself and husband Ben. Picture: Julie Kiriacoudis Source: News Corp Australia
So not one of her equally glamorous on-air “pals” ever received one of the lavish parchment embossed invitations to the soiree. They weren’t even lost in the mail.
“No, it was really just for our corporate clients,” says Keebaugh delicately.
“Oh my god, it was the best party,” marvels one high-profile guest, who prefers not to be named. “There was a really good list, anyone who was anyone was there.”
Well not quite: Over at the Morris Jones restaurant, Jackie Gillies is all dressed up in an Oglia-Loro Couture black tutu-inspired gown, which shows off her remarkable cleavage.
The 33-year-old has teamed it with vertigo-inducing black heels and is flitting around the place like a sexy fairy. By her side is her Silverchair drummer husband Ben and her parents Ivan and Lana Ivancevic.
The event is all about giving La Mascara a sales kick along.
“Launching it on the show was great,” Ben Gillies says. “We had thought about it long before they started filming. We were going to do a tequila range but Jackie wanted it to be something that she would actually enjoy drinking.”
“Tonight is definitely not the launch,” Jackie Gillies says. “We already did that on the show, so we have called this a premiere tasting.”
She says that’s why none of the other housewives were invited to attend. “We wanted tonight just to be about Ben and I,” she says.
It’s an intimate party although Gillies has flown in several guests from Sydney, including this columnist, and Big Brother’s social media maven Tully Smythe. Another former BB inmate, Tahan Lew, is also present.
For such a relatively compact space there’s a lot going on. There’s a cocktail mixing light show and then, just as everyone is thinking they can’t take any more excitement, Gillies’ good friend and former reality show host, the eccentric Henry Roth, turns up. He has just flown in from Sydney and insists on standing on a little stool to make a speech and propose a toast to the hosts.
“Henry made Jackie’s wedding dress,” Ben Gillies says, “and he was like that at our wedding. He kept making speeches at the reception. In fact, he made the best speech of the night.”
Either way the event ends on a high.
Jackie Gillies later admits she’s not missing the show or the other housewives.
“Really the only one that I relate to well is Janet because she was always just herself,” she reveals. She says the other reason she doesn’t maintain a friendship with them all is because they have children and she doesn’t yet.
“Ben and I lead a very different lifestyle. We have been making several trips to LA where he is recording a new album, so there hasn’t been much time to catch up.”
Would she do a second series?
“It depends whether or not we’re in Melbourne and what is going on; but if they approach me I probably would.”
What Gillies has, courtesy of the reality series, is a social media following on Instagram of 21,000, which is only eclipsed by controversial housewife and barrister Gina Liano’s following, which is in excess of 30,000.
“The Real Housewives Of Melbourne has been good for us,” Gillies says. “There is no down side.”
Just don’t expect them to hang out until the second season kicks in because they’ve already had an elegant sufficiency of that.
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