Celeb Best Blog

An episode of Andy Cohen's Watch What Happens Live turned into a replay of the disputed 2000 presidential election for Bravo when "Real Housewives of New York star Jill Zarin challenged poll results.

Watch What Happens recaps recent Bravo shows and includes star interviews. The uproar began the other night when Cohen asked viewers to vote whether they were on "Team Jill," supporting Zarin, or "Team Ramona," in support of Zarin rival Ramona Singer.

When the results came back in favor of Ramona, Zarin flipped her lid, according to sources, and demanded a recount.

"They had a problem," Zarin told Page Six. "My initial reaction was surprise, based on my own fans and how they were telling me they supported me. That night, we said, 'We don't think these numbers are right.' "

Sources told us that Zarin went so far as to tell Bravo she was getting her lawyer to "audit" the polling numbers. But the "Real Housewife" told us she didn't go that far.

"I didn't call a lawyer at 2 in the morning," Zarin joked, apparently meaning the hour when she'd have had to jump into action -- although the show is over at 11:30 p.m. "To do that, I'd have to have the best attorney in the world, who'd take that call at 2 in the morning even if I wasn't in jail."

A Bravo rep admitted that the network did find voting irregularities but said the problem was not more widespread: "There was a calculation error. It has been corrected and won't happen again." The rep said votes were tabulated by a third party, not by Bravo.

Meantime, after all the drama, Zarin still lost. The recount moved her from getting support from 22 percent of fans to 41 percent.

Credit: Page Six