In December, Laura Turner Seydel hosted the annual Captain Planet Foundation at the Georgia Aquarium in December. Here she is presenting an environmental award to TV host Jeff Corwin. CREDIT: Rodney Ho/rho@ajc.com

The National Enquirer this week reported that Ted Turner’s daughter and Atlanta philanthropist Laura Turner Seydel would be joining “The Real Housewives of Atlanta’ as a cast member season five.

Her spokeswoman Denise Elsbree exclusively told me that this is not true.

It is true that Bravo asked Seydel to be a cast member after her appearance on the January 8 episode. Marlo Hampton, who knew Seydel, had invited NeNe Leakes to a fundraiser for Captain Planet Foundation, which Seydel runs. Bravo was charmed by Seydel’s presence and invited her to be part of the show.

“She really enjoyed that,” Elsbree said. “It was fun. She was able to promote Captain Planet. She works hard to get the message out about the group’s different initiatives.”

But Seydel is too busy to be …

Kandi at a party last year at Shout to promote her Bedroom Kandi toy line. CREDIT: Rodney Ho/rho@ajc.com

Kandi Burruss in 2000 received a Grammy co-writing TLC’s hit “No Scrubs.”

Earlier this week, the “Real Housewives of Atlanta” entrepreneur won an award of a different sort: “Best Overall Sex Toy” by Adult Video News. Apparently, this is considered a high honor in the adult entertainment world.

Credit her “Bedroom Kandi” line, featured on “Real Housewives of Atlanta.”

(And yes, this item comes on the heels of that Kim Kardashian item yesterday. I’m digging deep in the dirt!)

Burruss will make appearances this weekend in Oakland (at the Good Vibrations store) and West Hollywood (at The Pleasure Chest.)

She worked with OhMiBod to create a vibrator that moves to the beat of music through an Ipod. The products include toys designed for “discreet travel” as well as special massagers and lubricants.

Burruss’ music career isn’t making her oodles of cash right now. …

Kandi Burruss and Phaedra Parks prep for the South Africa trip by taking an African dance class.

This was what one would call a “set up” episode. Not much happened but it’s all in preparation for the big trip to South Africa starting next week.

So this may be one of my briefest recaps to date.

First of all, NeNe Leakes reluctantly ends up deciding to fly to South Africa but invites Marlo Hampton without telling the other ladies.

Previous episodes have set up recurring character/”Housewives” wannabe Marlo as a socialite who lives off rich men but has a shady past with seven mug shots to her name. (Most of the arrests date back to the late 1990s and early 2000s and include an assault.)

Kandi Burruss and Phaedra Parks last week wagged tongues about Marlo’s past and did so a bit more this week. Scandalous!  If Marlo gets angry, Phaedra cracks, “I ain’t gonna sit and wait. I’ll get on my Nikes and run!”

Naturally, the producers set it up so Phaedra, Kandi and Sheree Whitfield are …

NeNe and Kim seemed to spend more time arguing than bonding over the years on "Real Housewives of Atlanta."CREDIT Wilford Harewood/BRAVO

After one fight too many season three, the Kim Zolciak/NeNe Leakes relationship appeared irrevocably broken.

To date this season, the two had only been seen in the same place twice and they ignored each other.

Mama Joyce, Kandi Burruss’ mom, decided to make one last-ditch effort to get them to be friends again by bringing them to dinner at Straits, Ludacris‘ Midtown restaurant, which he is planning to close. And boy, did she try. Again.

And again.

And again.

“I want you guys to be like it used to be,” she said plaintively, comparing their behavior to that of school kids.

This effort was like trying to melt a glacier with a flashlight.

Treating them like squirming third graders, Joyce had each of them say “hi” to each other. Awkward doesn’t even begin to describe that moment. (Joyce also tried to get Sheree Whitfield involved in this, too, …

Marlo Hampton last July. CREDIT: Rodney Ho/rho@ajc.com

Straight From the A, a local gossip web site, broke the story last year about Marlo Hampton’s arrival on “Real Housewives of Atlanta.”

The site also broke the story about Hampton’s rather shaky past. Hampton herself brought up her seven arrests to NeNe Leakes in an episode of “Real Housewives of Atlanta” this past Sunday. She said she had attacked a woman in a club and was re-arrested for probation problems.

Among the charges that I saw in a Nexis/Lexis background search last year, she was arrested in 2002 for firearms possession in Florida. In 1999, she was arrested for aggravated battery, which presumably was the nightclub incident.

Michelle Brown, who runs Straight from the A, received an email from a family member of the woman Hampton attacked.

Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 12:33 PM To: “MBrown@straightfromthea.com”

Hello M. Brown,

My name is [name removed], and the young lady that Marlo slaughtered was my sister, [name …

Screen shot from a previous episode of "Real Housewives of Atlanta" of Peter and Cynthia.

Generally, this show is most entertaining when the cast members get catty with each other.

This was not one of those episodes. In fact, there was no tension at all among any of the housewives or even a wannabe housewife like Marlo Hampton.

If you want over-the-top drama, you needed to go over to VH1 and watch “Mob Wives” an hour earlier. There’s blood and cursing and hair pulling and punches that would scare the wig off Kim Zolciak!

Instead, the focal point this week was problems between Cynthia Bailey and her new husband Peter Thomas.

Peter in the eighth episode had left Cynthia’s model agency party early and didn’t tell her. When she announced his name, he was long gone. In this new episode, Peter had scheduled a  “date night” salsa class but she was still peeved.

She told him …

AP photo

NeNe Leakes, in her latest effort to expand her base beyond “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” franchise, will play a swim coach on “Glee” for several episodes.

Photos of her on set leaked out a few weeks ago, but the announcement was officially made by “Glee” actors Lea Michele and Chris Colfer on Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live” Monday evening. Leakes then Tweeted about it.

Her character will play a rival to Sue Sylvester, played by Emmy-winning Jane Lynch.

The buzz is certainly off the show after mucho hype the past couple of years. “Glee” has seen a major drop-off in ratings from season two, losing more than 20 percent of its viewers.

Leakes last year tried a brief stint as an entertainment reporter at 11 Alive. Last fall, she became a focal point of controversy on “Celebrity Apprentice,” clashing with Star Jones, LaToya Jackson and Dionne Warwick, before quitting in a huff.

Based on what we’ve seen this season on “Real Housewives” and word since taping ended, she …

Phaedra Parks tries to help Sheree Whitfield get some child support monies from her ex husband. CREDIT: Bravo

A mere 48 hours after the last very special episode of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” featuring Kim Zolciak’s baby delivery, Bravo is carting out yet another new episode on a Tuesday night.

For the first time this season, Sheree Whitfield receives the primary story line this week thanks to a court case with her ex-husband Bob Whitfield.

The way the show is editing it, Bob appears to be doing everything he can to avoid paying child support for their kids. Or perhaps he really can’t. It’s hard to tell. He served Sheree with papers saying he’d like to reduce his child support because his income is greatly reduced.

The two end up going to Fulton County civil court. Phaedra Parks is representing Sheree. Phaedra is aware that Sheree didn’t fully pay two previous divorce attorneys, who both sued her to the tune of $180,000 plus combined. One of the firms even seized her …

In this publicity image released by The Wendy Williams Show, Kim Zolciak, left, of "Real Housewives of Atlanta," accepts a doll from host Wendy Williams during a live broadcast of "The Wendy Williams Show," Monday, Jan. 31, 2011 in New York. Williams, presented the long-haired doll to Zolciak, a fellow wig wearer, as a baby present. Zolciak is expecting a child with Atlanta Falcons NFL football player Kroy Biermann. (AP Photo/The Wendy Williams Show, Anders Krusberg)

In a very sincere episode of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta…”

This was by far the most drama-free episode of the show this season, mostly because there was hardly any interaction among the different housewives.  As a result, it was a bit of a snooze though there were some notable nuggets that could propel story lines down the road.

Kim Zolciak and Kroy Biermann had their baby K.J. Though K.J. came out a little early, there didn’t appear to be much in the way of medical issues. At one point, Kim sniped at Kroy …

Of those sources, one is a relative and another is a close friend. Thompson herself declined to comment.

Bravo, in the meantime, categorically denied the rumor. “There is no truth to this,” Bravo said in a statement. “We are in the middle of a successful season four with a full cast.”

Even if Thompson has signed on, that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s a lock to be part of the cast season five. Producers can change their minds. Thompson could get cold feet.

Indeed, if it were true, Bravo usually starts shooting its new season in the spring  and likely won’t announce any new cast members until late summer.  Ratings have continued to be strong for season four so it’s a fair presumption the show will be renewed.

Thompson is a genuine housewife. Her husband, Robert T. Thompson, is an Atlanta labor …