Orange County Register

See ‘GRETCHEN ROSSI, ROLE MODEL?’ slide show

Photo: Gretchen Rossi, 31, this month in Los Angeles. (Getty Images photo)

‘EXAMPLE TO YOUNG GIRLS’??

Gretchen Rossi makes me want to cry.

The alternative would be to break out laughing at this recent comment that last season’s newcomer to “Real Housewives of Orange County” made to Fox News:

“It is hard to stay strong and not go under the knife because I am surrounded by it. … I can only hope it sets an example to young girls that you don’t have to have plastic surgery to feel beautiful and confident.”

Her antipathy to breast implants isn’t new: That was her story last year when the Costa Mesa resident joined “Real Housewives,” as this blog reported in the post “Newest Orange County Housewife keeps it ‘real.’ “

The Bravo network’s Web site promoted her arrival last season with a wildly exaggerated description of Orange County: “This season’s newest housewife is a blond bombshell with a sparkling personality, dazzling smile and — something very few Orange County women have — real breasts.”

At that point, Rossi wasn’t setting herself up as a role model. She just asked to be judged by her heart rather than by appearances:

“When you live here, it’s hard not to get involved in that kind of vanity and I do like to look good and take care of myself, but hopefully people can see that, at the end of the day, what really matters is that people see my heart and see that I’m a good person.”

But now she wants to be a role model, an “example to young girls”? That would require her to have a public image worthy of imitation. Perhaps she is truly the good, caring person that she describes. But image is important in the role-model business — and in the image department, Rossi, 31, falls far short.

In the murky world of “reality” TV and celebrity-watching blogs, who knows what’s real, especially when the housewives are promoting the Nov. 5 launch of the show’s fifth season. Still, a role model shouldn’t be at the center of a swarm of photos and stories that she posed naked with a sex toy and romped in bed partially clad with two men.

A role model shouldn’t have to dispatch her attorney to demand that online photos, including a picture of her riding topless in a car, be removed from the Web. As the O.C. Register reported in April, the would-be role model’s attorney wrote, “Ms. Rossi contends that the photographs used on your website were stolen from her and she has never authorized the use of said photographs to anyone.”

On the show, this is the behavior of a role model?

• Gretchen plays with “vibrating cylinders, described as ‘adult toys,’ … sticks one in her ear and wonders if that’s where it’s supposed to go.”
• Gets drunk, flirts with the 22-year-old son of another “Real Housewife,” rubs his neck, and heads into the bathroom with him.
• Dates serial “Housewife” boyfriend and alleged child-support shirker Slade Smiley.

Her public disputes with and restraining order against reported boyfriend Jay Photoglou haven’t burnished her image. Nor did her alleged relationship with Photoglou while she was engaged to Jeff Beitzel, who died from leukemia in September 2008 and left her $2.5 million.

And for someone who’s staking out a position against plastic surgery on her breasts, it would help if she weren’t suspected of having undergone plastic surgery on her nose, lips, chin and cheeks. As the Web site Good Plastic Surgery summed it up in March, “Gretchen Rossi has a face made entirely of plastic.”

In comparing her current appearance with a photo that’s allegedly of Rossi while in college (pictured here, courtesy of GoodPlasticSurgery.com), plastic surgeon and blogger Dr. John Di Saia of San Clemente and OCBody.com told MakeMeHeal.com:

“If the pre-op images are not manipulated, then she has had a bunch of facial work … cheeks, nose, midface and lips.”

If you believe that Rossi is worthy of being considered a role model, here’s how a role model talks, as presented in a confrontation with Tamra Barney in a preview of this season’s “Real Housewives”:

Gretchen: “You talk (expletive) about me.”

Tamra: “I don’t talk (expletive).”

Gretchen: “Yes, you do.”

Tamra: “I talk the truth.”

Gretchen: “I’m telling you right here …”

Tamra: “I’m not an angel, Gretchen.”

Gretchen: “I never said I’m an angel.”

Tamra: “I don’t want to be known as the hooker in Orange County.”

Gretchen: “Tamra, shut the (expletive) up.”

Rossi is now engaged in “The Gretchen Project,” a series of videos that focus on “finding alternative ways to maintain everlasting beauty without having to go under the knife.”

The project’s Web site says “Gretchen will find the new, now and next in beauty from leading medical and beauty experts from around the world with the ultimate goal to pass along the pearls of wisdom to the modern day woman.”

That’s more like what a role model should be engaged in.

Related links:

• ‘Real Housewife’ Gretchen Rossi gets restraining order
• ‘Real Housewives of O.C.’ coming back for more
• Police investigate topless photo of ‘Housewives’ star
  
• ‘Real Housewife’ typifies breast-implant problems
• Doctors respond to ‘Real Housewife’ breast-implant decision
• Top celebrity slide shows of all time
• Botoxed beauties? — Brooke Shields, Jenny McCathy, many more
• Top celebrity slide shows of all time
• Tara Reid parties, acts, copes with bad breast surgery

Slide shows:

• Emmy awards game — Spot the Botox
• Secret nose jobs abound in Hollywood
• Then and now — Lindsay Lohan looks old at 23
• 10 years of perky Kelly Ripa
• Celebrity nose jobs: Some botched, some beautiful
• Stars’ botched plastic surgeries
• Victoria Beckham breast test
• Madonna from 1990 to now
• Kellie Pickler photos — before breast implants, after, and now

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