Bethenny Frankel On Why They Didn’t Want To Cast Her For RHONY

Bethenny Frankel has made an entire empire for herself after becoming one of the Real Housewives Of New York. She stopped by The Bobby Bones Show to talk about her career and what projects she’s been up to lately.

As it turns out, fans almost didn’t have Frankel on Real Housewives Of New York. Andy Cohen didn’t want to cast Frankel for two reasons. The first being that she already had an existing profile from her time on The Apprentice with Martha Stewart. The other reason being that she was poor and lived in a crappy apartment. Everyone was showing off their wealth on that show because as Frankel says “it’s low hanging fruit” to say you’re from Beverly Hills and show off the money you have. Frankel is proud that she was honest about being broke during her first several episodes on the show. When asked about how she came to make sure she was always setting boundaries, Frankel admitted that it got to a point when she would just know if something felt comfortable or not based on gut feelings. She shared that it was her job to set the tone for how people acted around her and how often they broke her boundaries.

Frankel admits she is very tech challenged, and doesn’t have a big infrastructure for her growing business. So she’s been trying to find people, but between that and managing them, Frankel said that’s the hardest part of her businesses. She has several side projects she’s been working on to build her empire. One of the new ones is her show The Big Shot with Bethenny on HBO Max. The show is about her looking for people to hire for her empire. Despite it being a show about her hiring people, she wasn’t obligated to hire someone just because of the show. She admitted that most of the people that came through the show weren’t great candidates, even the audience thought that sucked. Though there were a few Frankel has kept in touch with and were really kind.

When asked on advice for jumping into a self-making career, Frankel said that it’s easy to tell people to walk away from a 401K and insurance, but it’s a lot easier said than done. However because of the pandemic, people found out how little they can survive with, which made people more willing to pursue new opportunities despite uncomfortability. She added that the pandemic was a good dress rehearsal for taking chances.