Tina O forgoes 'Real Housewives' for real life

Tina O was given a choice between keeping her marriage and accepting a role as one of Bravo's "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills."

Since moving out there about six years ago, the Minnesota-born interior designer, comedian and charity gadfly has been throwing herself into life on Rodeo Drive (until her house sold recently, at least). She's spent the past two years establishing her clothing line, wannawearbytinao. com, which grew out of Tinseltown's failure to meet her fashion needs.

"I had to decline ['Real Housewives'] because of my fashion business and my husband," who said, "Absolutely not. He said, No, or get a divorce."

Wow. Sounds like there's been a power shift in her marriage to Brad Hillstrom, who appeared less in charge when they lived here.

Oh well, Tina said it probably wouldn't have been a good fit anyway.

"First off, I'm more into the comedy and the lighter side of life," she said. "They're more into the nasty side of things, and my husband thought it wasn't [appropriate] because he's consulting in the medical business.

"Brad's a little higher brow. He puts up with my antics. I'm friendly with the girls on 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.' But behind the scenes, it's getting really nasty and half of them aren't even speaking to each other."

"I was on 'Real Housewives of New York,' three different [recent] episodes," she said. She was even featured in a TV commercial referring to the housewives as "Those bitches."

Tina O's friend, Carolyn Forest, another Minnesotan who's now a blackjack dealer in Reno, alerted me to Tina O's latest TV appearances: "I liked the [Real Housewives of MN] cover of Mpls.St.Paul mag. They're all so pretty. But our local Minneapolis girl is actually on a show."

View Tina's and Sonja's TV burlesque routine at www.youtube.com/watch?v= RKN6nOMN3dg. Don't be confused by the caption; Tina O is wearing black.

It hasn't all been a party for her in Lala Land, however.

"I almost died four weeks ago. I had pneumonia and didn't know it," said Tina O. "And you know me, I kept right on partying with a 103-degree temperature. I was hospitalized at UCLA for two weeks and then at the Mayo [in Scottsdale, Ariz.] for one week. So I am happy to be speaking to you. I've been convalescing."

"I should send you a sample," she said. And I need that perfume because? "It will attract anything you want. It's better than home cooking, barbecue sauce and mini-skirts."

Perfume was not the reason I had trouble contacting her Wednesday when a visit to her doctor, who is father of "Kick-Ass" star Chloe Moretz, was high on Tina O's priorities.

"I just left Dr. [ McCoy] Moretz's office. They just did a test on me for a new facelift procedure. It's nonsurgical," she laughed. "Dr. Moretz is like the best plastic surgeon here."

A Starkey no-vite

Irreverence has its price.

On Friday, Rosalie Hagel from the FLORIDA company handling PR for the 2011 annual MINNESOTA event, called with the good news, prompted by my not being more worshipful around the pro athletic aristocracy that attends.

"Apparently there were previous issues. I'm not familiar with what those were," Hagel told me. "But last year there was a specific incident where I understand, um, you were chasing down Magic Johnson and yelling some inappropriate comments to him. As a result, the foundation received some negative e-mails from people [who] saw the video. They got calls about it. So that really was the impetus."

Well, somebody needs to inform Magic that he'd sound like he attended college if he stopped using the nonexistent word HISSELF! (Only morons use "hisself," according to the Urban Dictionary, which recognizes the word unvite.)

That wasn't the only fun I had in that spectacular video at startribune.com/a557. Lots of time was spent getting other athletes to explain why Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, of vise-grip handshake fame, had trouble holding onto the football, especially in a game that would have propelled us to the Super Bowl with Brett Favre at QB.

While the public reason for my unvitation was the video, I suspect this is the real reason:

The only thing I'll miss at the gala is Austin's smile.