It was a massive issue for Kelly Bensimon when former fiancé Scott Litner did not agree to sign a prenuptial agreement before their planned wedding day.
“I’m obviously extremely disappointed, but it’s not something that just happened. This is something that was building up over time and the prenup was a big deal for me,” Bensimon, 56, told the Daily Mail on July 13. “It’s like when you’re a single parent, whether you have thousands in your account or you have a 100 million in your account, women are going to need to protect themselves, and I’m just not going to take a risk.”
Kelly was previously married to fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon, with whom she shares daughters Sea, 26, and Teddy, 23a, for nearly a decade before their divorce in 2007. Kelly later moved on with Litner, getting engaged in 2023. The Real Housewives of New York City alum called off their June nuptials four days before the scheduled ceremony.
According to Kelly, choosing to walk away from Litner has “opened a lot of doors” for her personally.
“It’s about having personal respect and value, which I have. I’m raising two girls, who are really important to me,” she told the Daily Mail. “But the prenup is really important because it talks about more than just your own personal value.”
Kelly continued, “I guess the biggest takeaway from this is just about protecting myself and my friends and being a solid female that people can come to. I’ve had so many people reach out to me and say, ‘This happened to me.’ I just have so much empathy for them, and I try to be a solid sounding board for them.”
Speaking to others who’ve been through similar situations has been “really helpful” to Kelly.
“Everyone talks about balance. Balance is really important,” she said. “You have to work hard, play hard, love hard and nurture hard.”
Kelly is currently single and plans to take these lessons into future relationships.
“I’m not going to let my girls do it and I’m not going to do it,” Kelly stressed to the outlet, noting it would be a “disadvantage” to marry without a prenup in place. “Every state has a different law [and] the law doesn’t care if he loved you so much.”
After the breakup last month, Kelly reflected on her “disappointment” in an exclusive statement to Us Weekly.
“I haven’t come this far in business and life to start making poor decisions because of a man,” she told Us in June. “He of all people should have understood the need to protect each other before we tied the knot. I’m truly shocked he refused a prenup.”
Litner never publicly addressed any of Kelly’s claims.
