Former Real Housewives of New York star Bethenny Frankel had a plan to get her own reality show from the very beginning. So when Jill Zarin introduced Bethenny to the producers at Bravo and they asked her to join the cast of RHONY, Bethenny saw this as the opportunity that she needed. “It was definitely a plan,” Bethenny told Hollywood Life exclusively. “It was definitely something I knew was going to happen. I could see it.”So when Bethenny joined the cast, she made it a point to “separate from the pack” as she puts it in her new book, A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life. “I separated in a sense that Season One — everybody was being frivolous,” Bethenny explains to us. “I was just trying to build a career and I was already working on all the projects.”
“Bravo is very much a network that is known for and relishes big drama, diamonds, glam, money and luxury,” Bethenny says. “I was not that. I had no money, I lived in 700 square-foot apartment. I had no idea what was going on in my life emotionally or career-wise. I separated in the sense that I wasn’t going to pretend I was somebody I wasn’t. I had to separate from the pack and be truthful.”
And when Bethenny found out she was getting her own show, not one of her fellow cast members — Ramona Singer, Alex McCord, Jill, Countess LuAnn de Lesseps or Kelly Bensimon — congratulated her. Were they jealous?
Now, Bethenny’s in the second season of her own show Bethenny Ever After — and she’s happier than ever that she’s no longer a housewife. “I don’t regret not being on that show at all,” she tells us. “I don’t miss a minute of it.”
In Bethenny Ever After, “no one is doing anything violent or outlandish for television,” Bethenny says. “I just love the natural way about this show because it’s true.”
Credit: Hollywood Life (Lindsey DiMattina)