Tinsley Mortimer Through the Years

Tinsley had the picture perfect American upbringing in Richmond, Virginia. She came from the kind of nuclear family you'd find in a 1950s public health pamphlet. Her parents had two pretty and perfectly dressed little girls and their eldest, Tinsley, went on to follow a well-worn path for well-bred girls, from school at Lawrenceville to a short-lived gig in PR and then marriage to the son of a famous – and wealthy – American family.

Tinsley's marriage in 2002 to the great-grandson of Standard Oil president Henry Morgan Tilford earned a coveted story in the New York Times Sunday Styles section. In the society world, their marriage was big news. It was also the launching pad for Tinsley as a society It Girl.

Tinsley and Topper were the society couple of New York in the mid-2000s. But after a few years of wedded bliss, Topper disappeared from Tinsley's side on the red carpet and there were murmurs of trouble in paradise. They split in 2009 (it was a salacious split filled with allegations of cheating on both parties), but remained legally married for another four years. In 2018, Topper married the shoe designer Tabitha Simmons.

Like Paris Hilton before her, Tinsley was famous for being famous. Her notoriety was most in New York's fashion and society circles, but it kept her in the front row of fashion shows for years and occasionally even afforded her a spot *on* the runway, like in Heatherette's 2007 show at NYFW.

She even got invited to the MET Gala in 2005! She was loved by fashion industry insiders – so much so that Dior named a lipstick after her. (It was basically the shade of this dress!)

Not every outfit she wore was that fab. This one was mid-2000s tragic, but then again the 2000s are back so maybe Tinsley is retroactively ahead of the curve.

Tinsley was once the queen of Page Six, the unofficial RHONY gossip bible. They wrote about her constantly but were, uh, never very nice.

Did you know Tinsley once had a feud with a pre-The City Olivia Palermo? If you haven't read about it, this New York Magazine story has all the tea. (And even a decade later, it's still piping hot.)

Tinsley was a New York social queen during the same years Ivanka Trump was on the scene.

She had a cameo on Gossip Girl, playing herself as a guest at a white party in, where else? The Hamptons.

Did you know Tinsley is good buds with Kelly Bensimon? They were fashion week pals for years – this photo was taken at a show way back in 2007.

Actually, Tinsley met most of the cast way, way before she joined the show. Back in 2010, she met LuAnn at a fashion show by The Blonds. (BTW, the guy with the long hair is Constantine Maroulis, her ex-boyfriend.)

She even met Bethenny! The two attended an event together in South Beach back in 2007, which is definitely suspect considering Bethenny basically pretended not to know who she was when she joined the RHONY cast.

If you want to get the full lowdown on Tinsley's downfall, we covered it in detail. All we'll say right now is: yeesh, those eyebrows.

And, finally, the TInsley we now know: grown and rebuilding her life, but still (always!) with her signature curl.