Real Housewives Of New York City: Tinsley Mortimer and mother Dale Mercer cry backstage at NYFW

Tinsley Mortimer cried along with her mother Dale Mercer as the former ‘It girl’ regained her ‘spark’ on Thursday’s episode of The Real Housewives Of New York City.

The 44-year-old reality star walked in a show by designer Garo Sparo, a former Project Runway competitor who specialized in glittery over-the-top frocks.

The sight of Tinsley in a flouncy dress and tiara sent her mother Dale into tears.

‘You look like yourself again,’ she cried backstage, remembering how her onetime ‘It girl’ daughter walked in fashion shows a decade ago.

‘Thank you, mommy,’ Tinsley said.

The sight of Dale crying made Tinsley tear up and she begged her mother to stop.

‘Don’t make me cry right now,’ Tinsley pleaded.

‘I’m gonna be quiet, but you look like yourself again. That’s what made me cry,’ Dale said.

‘Stop! Mommy, please. I can’t cry right now. I’m gonna mess up my makeup,’ Tinsley said.

Dale asked what was wrong with them and Tinsley burst into laughter followed by her mother.

Most of Tinsley’s RHONY castmates were thrilled to see she had her ‘spark’ back, though Dorinda Medley was less impressed with the venue.

‘I know [Tinsley] loves these sort of Disney-themed fashion shows,’ she said. ‘Maybe she’ll find her yellow brick road. She’ll have her wedding in Cinderella’s castle.’

Dorinda, 55, gave viewers some insight into why she finally broke up with longtime partner John Mahdessian during the season 12 episode.

While getting her makeup done before an event, Dorinda said that John ‘never misses the opportunity to make a bad decision,’ adding ‘he just doesn’t think sometimes.’

‘He wanted to go to this event that we’re invited to,’ she told her makeup artist, Luke. ‘It was just too much, too many people. I didn’t want to go. It’s like he’s sneaking out to do it.’

‘We’re in a relationship for seven-and-a-half years,’ she elaborated. ‘The answer is, of course, ‘Well, I don’t want to go, either,’ right?’

‘It just feels a bit disrespectful,’ Luke agreed, as Dorinda said she wasn’t jealous, or worried about John cheating on her, but ‘the lack of transparency’ bothered her.

‘That’s why sometimes I think the relationship gets stunted,’ she reflected. ‘It’s like, ‘Fine, go off and do it on your own then.’ It’s like, I haven’t returned phone calls for two days.’

To the cameras, Dorinda added, ‘That doesn’t make me feel good. That doesn’t give me the sense of well-being and love. What’s out there that you’re missing? Because clearly if you’re not home with me, you’re not happy with me.’

Dorinda and John have been on ‘a break’ since September 2019.

Despite her romantic troubles, Dorinda showed up for pal Sonja Morgan, 56, when she launched her collection at New York Fashion Week.

Sonja was debuting a ready-to-wear apparel line under the brand name Sonja by Sonja Morgan.

The RHONY cast was excited to attend her show, and she’d sent them all outfits to wear.

Ramona Singer, 63, opined that anyone who didn’t go to a fashion show in New York was ‘almost like a leper,’ saying that she forced herself to go so she didn’t get ‘ostracized.’

Sonja was excited to begin a new chapter for her brand, as her collection was wholly separate from the line she’d launched back in 2014.

She described the audience for her new brand as being between the ages of 25 and 45, joking, ‘I’m 55, pushing 70.’

Sonja was especially excited about the accessible price point of her collection, in which everything was under $250, but worried about her scatterbrained team.

With just a week before the show, they hadn’t cast models and invited just 75 people.

‘This is a big hurdle for me, and I don’t want to mess it up,’ Sonja admitted, adding that it was especially ‘nerve-wracking’ because her designer pals and RHONY castmates were coming.

The next show the women attended was for designer Pamella Roland, and they threw their weight around backstage and on the red carpet.

Luann de Lesseps, 54, asked the models’ hairdresser to tame her coif, while Ramona butted in front of a woman posing with Pamella and asked an event photographer to take her own pics.

Ramona wasn’t happy with Tinsley, claiming she’d ‘trashed’ her room after Ramona’s recent house party in the Hamptons, and left spaghetti stains on her duvet comforter.

She was equally incensed that Sonja texted throughout Pamella’s show, telling her at brunch afterward, ‘If you can’t multi-task, there’s something wrong with your business.’

‘Multi-task?’ Sonja asked. ‘This is a huge show.’

‘No. It’s not a huge show,’ Ramona replied, as Sonja fretted about models, sponsors, and costs.

When Leah McSweeney, 37, showed up, Ramona called her ‘rude’ for skipping Pamella’s show.

Leah explained that she’d just been at home having a difficult conversation with her dad, and she teared up behind dark sunglasses.

Her friends learned that she’d texted her mother and told her that she’d started drinking again after a long stretch of not doing so.

It triggered her mom, who had sent her daughter to rehab in her teen years, and she didn’t respond to any of Leah’s subsequent texts.

‘You know, listen, when you’ve had a nine-year period of not drinking and decide to start doing it, obviously, rightly so, my mom is going to be worried,’ Leah admitted.

Her father told her, ‘Mommy’s real mad at you, and she just doesn’t want to talk to you right now.’

Leah knew her mother still viewed her as ‘that wild teenager’ she once was, and said, ‘It’s very hard for her to accept me as a 37-year-old woman who’s got her s*** together.’

She promised her friends she wouldn’t go off into a ‘dark place’ like she did in her teens.

Leah also said she didn’t have any regrets about drinking at Ramona’s house party, an event at which she swam nearly naked, threw tiki torches in the bushes, and insulted Sonja’s wealth.

‘I feel like I was in a safe, good environment; I don’t feel like I was in any danger,’ she opined.

Ramona couldn’t believe Leah had texted her mother with the news instead of calling her, to which Leah replied, ‘I’m a Millenial!’

Tinsley empathized, saying she still tried to please her own mom, and tried to keep from upsetting her, sometimes telling her things that she shouldn’t.

She launched into a speech about how her mother subtly picked at her, noting that she hadn’t liked her curls at a fashion show earlier, as Leah and Dorinda stifled laughs.

Leah, a real veteran of the fashion trenches, started her streetwear line Married To The Mob 15 years ago when it was hard to find tough, cool clothing for women.

She’d wanted to be her own boss, she said, because she ‘kept getting fired from every job.’

That week, she met with her ‘baby daddy’ Rob Cristofaro, the father of her daughter Kier, 12.

He was concerned about her drinking, saying he didn’t think it was a good idea, either.

‘I think it’s a destructive path for you that we both have seen,’ he told her, as she insisted she wasn’t using alcohol ‘destructively.’

‘Whatever you say, you’re fooling yourself,’ he offered, warning her not to hurt Kier.

Leah asserted that her mother and Rob were the ‘two rocks’ in her life, so their questioning of her behavior was ‘really upsetting.’

Rob noted that Leah’s mom was due ‘respect’ as their only caregiver, and Leah got weepy.

‘Honestly, I can’t believe that with everything me and her have been through, there is still conflict,’ she said. ‘I still do not feel any kind of approval. I only feel judgment from her.’

‘That’s what parents do,’ Rob said.

The day of Sonja’s show arrived and she freaked out at her staffers, as they’d ordered paltry-looking flowers and seemed wholly unprepared for the onslaught of people showing up.

Tinsley and Leah went to the show together, with Tinsley dressed in a tight Sonja dress and Leah wearing a maxi with photos of rapper Lil’ Kim’s police mugshot.

Leah chose not to wear what Sonja sent her, showing Tinsley a shapeless gray outfit that was supposed to be ‘athleisure,’ complete with a magenta fedora and ‘crack-pipe’ sunglasses.

Leah was sure that Sonja was getting back at her for the things she’d said at Ramona’s party, though Tinsley felt that Sonja hadn’t meant anything by it.

Ramona wasn’t wearing Sonja by Sonja Morgan either, as she ‘couldn’t zip it up.’

Dorinda was surprised to see John show up, but confessed: ‘If I don’t go to a party, I don’t see John. It’s a disconnect I can’t get my head around.’

Sonja’s show was problematic from the start, with no music or lights as the models walked.

‘I know what a fashion show looks like,’ Leah cracked. ‘This is not a fashion show.’

Afterward, Sonja asked Leah why she wasn’t wearing the cashmere two-piece set, and Leah told her, ‘I think you’re full of s***, and I think you’re passive-aggressive, and I think you’re still mad at me from the Hamptons.’

She grabbed the clothing bag and dumped it in Sonja’s hands, complaining that it came ripped.

Sonja immediately got naked in the building’s kitchen and put on the outfit she’d sent Leah, saying she didn’t think Leah would have worn one of her fancy dresses.

‘Leah!’ Sonja cried, throwing open the kitchen doors and showing off the entire outfit.

‘You look like s***!’ Ramona cried, as the RHONY castmates added, T’errible! Terrible.’

Leah had to laugh, saying, ‘It’s pretty damn hard to stay mad at Sonja when she’s prancing around her fashion show looking like a pimp in pajamas.’

The Real Housewives of New York will return next week on Bravo.