Axed “Real Housewives of New York” star Alex McCord and husband Simon van Kempen have been left to pick up the pieces after being fired from the series. “Alex and I were always miscast in the show,” van Kempen said yesterday. “And if [Bravo] is taking it to the ‘Beverly Hills’ level of money, of course we wouldn’t be on,” he added, referring to Bravo’s aim of injecting more glitz. Sources said the Brooklyn couple — who had (gasp!) regular jobs when the show began — begged Bravo to renew McCord’s contract at 50 percent off her $275,000 fee. But van Kempen, backed by a Bravo rep, said that’s “100 percent not true. Once we had a no, it was no. That would’ve just perpetuated the perception we are the wannabes they made us out to be.” The couple is now concentrating on a line of Egyptian-cotton towels and bedding, called Aluxe, which they’ve launched for textiles market week. “No one held a gun to our heads,” van Kempen said. “We’re sad it’s not continuing. But four years wasn’t bad.”