Does anyone know of the De Lessups family? the wife was featured on "real housewives of New York"?

Question

Does anyone know of the De Lessups family? the wife was featured on "real housewives of New York"?

Answer 1

Yes, I know of them. The wife has a very tacky attitude. No countess I know makes a very definite point of being addressed as such because it is tactless. LuAnn de Lesseps even has a show about being a countess but I don't think it entails anything "special" because she was a very, very normal person before she married her count.

The Lesseps family were involved in the constructions of the Suez and Panama canals (the latter of which was a disaster). They were granted their nobility by Napoleon I although the below article indicates an uncle was ennobled by Louis XVI (this would have been another line though).