Why one of these ‘Real Housewives’ made Andy Cohen go ‘ballistic’

Real housewives get real mad.

In the bombshell new book “Not All Diamonds and Rosé: The Inside Story of the Real Housewives from the People Who Lived It” (Andy Cohen Books), it’s revealed just how upset some of the reality stars got when they were let go from the show. 

Author Dave Quinn interviewed 185 people for the book, among them current and former “Real Housewives” who had less than glowing things to say about Bravo mastermind Andy Cohen. 

“RHONY” star Ramona Singer recalls telling Cohen, “You have a lot of balls to fire half the cast” after Jill Zarin, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Alex McCord and Cindy Barshop were were all given the heave ho before Season 5 in an offscreen reality TV Red Wedding. 

McCord and her memorable husband, Simon van Kempen, took it especially hard, according to Cohen. 

“[They] went for blood after we didn’t pick them up. They became incredible thorns in our side,” Cohen says in the book. “Simon left his job and started a website called BravoRatings.com, where he analyzed our ratings. He would live-tweet ‘Watch What Happens Live’ and troll my guests. It was a brilliant — albeit seemingly time-consuming and not at all profitable — way to try to get under our skin. Then Alex starts a vlog where she would critique episodes of ‘New York Housewives’ and talk about areas where she thought that production had gotten involved. It was unprecedented. I’ve never seen anything like it since.”

(McCord and van Kempen are not quoted in the book and did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.) 

Meanwhile, Carole Radziwill also had a contentious ending. The journalist ended her run on “The Real Housewives of New York” in 2018, after six seasons on the show and a friend breakup with Bethenny Frankel. 

“I am sure this does not come as a surprise to any of the viewers, all of whom have been supportive, encouraging, and kind,” she said at the time in an official statement. “My original curiosity about reality television has waned over the years and I am focusing on TV and writing projects that better suit my more steady temperament.”

On Instagram Stories, she was more cryptic, writing: “If you were doing something that was forcing you to do things that went against your own value system would you walk away regardless of the pay.”

Cohen took umbrage at the Instagram move. “Carole’s post basically implied that she was leaving a really toxic situation,” he tells Quinn in the book. “It really rubbed me the wrong way because I really felt like I had changed her life.”

Radziwill says in the book that “Andy went ballistic” — and she had to eventually tell him never to contact her again.

“She is not the person I used to know,” says Cohen.