It’s hard to believe now, but when we met Bethenny Frankel on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart in 2005 and got to know her better on The Real Housewives of New York City in 2008, she had very little money. Actually, it’s hard to remember a time before Frankel, period — that’s how ingrained in the culture she’s become: first on TV, then in business and now on social media and in our collective consciousness.
For almost two decades, Frankel, 54, has shared her no-nonsense, warp speed takes on everything from the best chicken salad in the Hamptons to why it’s important for everyday citizens to chip in when communities are suffering. Through it all, she’s been working her tush off and making bank — and headlines. She sold off the Skinnygirl Cocktails arm of her corporation in 2011 for a reported $100 million, and to date, Skinnygirl’s other categories (including shapewear, popcorn, salad dressings and coffee) have generated $1 billion in retail sales. She has 3.3 million followers on TikTok and 4 million on Instagram. She walked the L’Oréal runway in Paris in 2024 and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit show in May. Life is very, very good.
Us Weekly’s Entrepreneur of the Year — who recently left Connecticut for Florida with her 15-year-old daughter, Bryn, and their dogs — caught up with Us about finding her greatest success in her 50s, her dating status and what she really thinks about having so much cold, hard cash.
Let’s go back to the beginning. Where do you credit your motivation?
I went to 13 schools. I was always the new kid. I wasn’t really a child, I was more like an adult as a child, being at the racetrack [with my dad] for my summers, living in Vegas for several weeks. I didn’t have a lot of parental involvement, so I was kind of raising myself. I grew up in a very gritty lifestyle, so I think sometimes I miss a sensitivity chip. I don’t get really tired, and pros play hurt. That’s my life mantra.
Do you ever wish it weren’t? That you could flip to a less intense way of being?
I would love to be like that. It’s not the body, it’s the mind. I have so many ideas that it’s really hard to turn them off, but I’m so grateful for that. I’ve dated a lot of men who either have money from families or have made money on their own or have sold companies, but they’ll be like, “Wait, you have so much going on that it makes me feel like I have nothing going on.” Or they’ll try to overcompensate and find things to do, because they used to feel happy, and being around me, they feel like they’re not doing enough. So I feel grateful that I can execute ideas all the time, that I can connect with people — I have 15-year-old fans and I have 70-year-old fans.
Is there someone you relate to most, or do you feel like you’ve created your own lane?
I’ve heard Martha [Stewart]. I think there are some similarities because Martha is a hard worker, but I’ve heard from people who worked with her that she doesn’t have as much energy as I do, and I know she’s much older, but… it’s a different style. Ellen [DeGeneres] did that one powerhouse thing so well, which was a beast, but that was one thing. I’m just doing so many different things that I don’t know. I can’t think of many women that are doing so many different things.
Do you remember your earliest business deal or something you did early on that gave you that first big adrenaline rush?
The first thing that was really successful for me was being on the New York Times bestseller list [with 2009’s Naturally Thin: Unleash Your SkinnyGirl and Free Yourself From a Lifetime of Dieting]. Being there for five months as a fairly unknown was a big deal. Then Skinnygirl was the fastest-growing cocktail in history at the time, and it was the first-ever low-calorie ready-to-drink cocktail. I mean, I invented the skinny margarita. I was the first person to use the word “skinny” before items like lattes and pizza. The ready-to-drink space was dead. So knowing we were the fastest-growing liquor brand in history, that says something. And then when I did my spinoff to the Housewives [Bethenny Ever After], it was the highest-rated series premiere in Bravo history at the time. Or, like, the Forbes cover was amazing, my leaving Housewives and the ratings going from 3.2 million to 1.6 million. The numbers don’t lie. And then [returning], and [the ratings] going back to over 3 million. It was like, “Oh, wait, I have value.” These were signs that things were going well. You need those in life. For people who are entrepreneurs, you need that data, those stats — they keep you going.
Have you ever worried about seeming too intimidating or powerful?
I don’t really care about celebrities, but I’ve been called by much more successful and well-known people than myself to try to get me to, like, say something positive about them, or take their side in something that’s going on. This is all more recent, though, because I’m opinionated and I share my opinions, because nobody has anything that I want. It’s OK if you don’t invite me to a big party because of the things that I say. I don’t even want to go for the most part, you know?
How does that make you feel?
More aware that people are actually listening. I just used to think that I’m talking to myself and my followers, and we’re over here doing our own thing. I didn’t realize that it was more on a global scale, media-wise. For example, I said that I think people who go out and spend money twice a day on coffee and the plastic and the banana flavor and the Nutella and all that are stupid. It doesn’t mean I’m never allowed to get coffee out again. Like now I’m out, trying to hide in a costume because Bryn wants to get a coffee. That ends up in a publication. I’m like, “Who cares? It’s just a stupid thing I’m saying about coffee.” You want to be free with your thoughts, but also know that they’re going to get crazy pickup for some dumb thing you said that’s not even important.
Do you feel like you’re at the peak of your success right now?
Yes, it’s so strange. I’m not 35 years old. I’m gonna be old soon. Could this not have happened seven years ago? Like, just to give me a little more f**king runway? We all know it’s ridiculous, walking in Fashion Week and walking in Sports Illustrated. Fifteen-year-olds come up to me — like, what is going on?
What role do you think social media played in that?
It’s what I always wanted: How do I just be myself? Where does that exist? I’m a free bird, so I’ve always known that I want to just be myself, but the universe didn’t have the vehicle for it. I thought Instagram was like, you take a picture of yourself in a bathing suit — “Look how good I look!” — and you post it, and I was terrible at it. So until I started to find my cadence and be myself, this became the reality show. This became what I always knew I wanted, and also the direct-to-consumer of it all. [When I was] sitting there on a set and having to say what I like and sell this stuff, [it wasn’t] in my own way, not in my own words, not in my own house, not in my own pajamas. So I’ve always been like this. It’s just that the vehicle met me where I’m at. I found the place. People are like, “When are you going back on TV?” I’m like, “I am [on TV]. This is it. We’re watching the show right now.” I can’t make more money [by] going and sitting in Jimmy Fallon’s seat, having to go to a studio and do it the way they want, or Kelly Clarkson or Drew Barrymore. I make as much money as they do sitting in my house, in my pajamas. This is my talk show, my thing, and I get to be myself and be free the same way I do with my charity.
How much money do you make sitting at home?
It’s not just sitting in my pajamas, it’s also opportunities that arise because it’s sitting in my pajamas. It’s speaking engagements, it’s brand partnerships, it’s so many different things. It’s my website and models I’ve created that even agencies have not figured out how to do. So we’re sort of gatekeeping about the way that I make money, because it’s definitely different than anyone else in the entertainment industry. And I know because we’ve had many agents try to figure out how we’re doing it and how we’re doing the deals, but I’m gatekeeping it now.
Is attaining infinite wealth a goal?
No, it’s just a scorecard. I have everything I want. Money is great when you have an aging parent or someone reaches out to you and they need help, and you want to help another human being. For me, it was an estranged stepparent, but I’m the one who could do it. They had family members, but everyone turned their back on them. This is something that money makes available to you. I was in Europe, and I couldn’t sleep, and I was having anxiety because of this move, and I just like to be home. And it was four in the morning, I’m like, I’m gonna go to the airport, and my ticket ended up being, like, $6,000 more, something crazy. I had a crazy, amazing points ticket, but I wasn’t feeling well. I’d been sick, and I was like, “This is what money’s for.” Your kid’s got a problem, you have a situation, someone needs help. You have a charitable donation you want to make, that’s what money is for; it’s freedom.
Did you ever feel pressure to spend money a certain way on Housewives?
I didn’t feel like I had to do that. I felt like that was the language that was being spoken, and you wanted to flex a little. I’ve never had a problem wearing very inexpensive shoes or something with an expensive top. I don’t care. I love that my daughter loves to go thrifting; she’s mentioned that some of the kids have labels and she doesn’t. I’ve talked to her about what that means emotionally. But then I had a pair of Louis Vuitton slides that I wasn’t wearing, and she loves them, and she wears them every day. So it’s OK for her to flex a little, but then she’s wearing it with a $10 top she thrifted. For special things –— she gets a good grade, it’s Valentine’s Day — I try to do my best to not make it every day.
Do you see her taking over the company one day?
I don’t necessarily, because it’s so in me. It’s so me-centric, and she doesn’t want the attention… but then she sort of does want it. She’s doing a branded deal today, because they’ll say, “Do you want to do something?” She’s doing something for back-to-school, but like, she’ll dread it. She’s gonna have to do it and say the things. And so she loves the products, but it’s work. The good news is that she doesn’t want it so badly. And I love that, because I know people her age that would want it so badly. I don’t want her to want this. I really don’t. I want her to be happy. So I love that she could sit down in front of her desk right now and review products all day and review what she’s wearing, and she could do exactly what I do, and she could be successful and get millions of followers and make money. And she doesn’t want to. She wants to be a normal little girl with a little frosting.
Do you credit that to how you raised her?
She’ll say, like, “Why [can you have something that I can’t]?” I’m like, “Because I’m a woman in her 50s that worked really hard.” In my mid- to late 30s, I couldn’t afford a taxi downtown. Like, that’s a real thing. I remember the $25 taxi to go to Cipriani because someone was setting me up with someone. I couldn’t afford it, and I didn’t want to take the subway at night. I couldn’t afford drinks at dinners. Like, she doesn’t have to worry about that. I want her to never be sitting at a table and not be able to afford something. But by the same token, that’s why I’m successful. So it’s very hard to have kids when you have money. I talked to Mark Cuban about this: You’re never going to be able to instill that hunger in them, you can’t just create that. I’m not going to make her, you know, take the train when I’m flying first class, so it’s hard to create that.
Does she get an allowance?
Yes, but she does not spend it. She doesn’t get a boba without asking me. She has a very healthy fear of me. I see her in her Notes app, writing down every latte she gets. She wanted to buy hair serum yesterday in the drugstore. It hurt me. I’m like, “Bryn, do you know how many millions of dollars of hair serums I get?” But she’s like, “I like this one.” I go, “Great, it’s coming out of your allowance.” I couldn’t stomach the $32 — [it went] against the fiber of my being.
Are you proud of the Housewives era of your life? Do you look back at it fondly?
I do, in so many ways, and I look back at people fondly. It’s nostalgic and part of pop culture.
And what about reality TV now?
I think that there’s been a shift since the reality reckoning. I know from production that they’ve definitely improved workplace conditions and consumption and what’s acceptable and not acceptable in that landscape. It was the Wild West for a while. In some ways, it’s a good opportunity for people because they get to have this platform. In other ways, it’s been so saturated. They spend so much time shooting. Someone just recently asked me to do a show with them. They’re pretty famous, and we could get a show. But, like, I don’t want the bulk of the camera, the shooting, the hair, the makeup, the editing. It’s just too bulky. It would be a very specific situation, and it would have to be an astronomical sum. Like, millions of dollars to go for a couple months.
You’ve talked about loneliness and how your April move from Connecticut to Florida was in part because of it. Can you say more about that?
I was shocked at how many people related to that, and were thinking about where they live and how they live. People think because I’m so seemingly social or fun or funny, that means I’m social. I’m really an introvert. When I go out, I can do it, but, like, I want to get back to the nest. [It’s why I end up running] home at four in the morning, paying $6,000 extra. I run because it’s too much. I need to get back. Day to day, I don’t go out that much. So I like to live in a place that’s near some action, because then even just walking out in the street to go get a coffee or go get my nails done, that means I’m going to see something, be part of something, see some action. If I live in a very suburban place, I’ll never get in the car and I’ll never go anywhere. If someone comes to my house to do my hair or do my manicure, do my thing. So, like, I get real insular. And there could be days where I don’t leave the house, days, and it’s embarrassing. I’ve been embarrassed about it, but I shared it a little there.
It’s so relatable.
So moving to Florida, there was something that happened in our personal life that just hit in a moment. And I had thought about it for years, and obviously, Bryn was in school, and it wasn’t going to happen. And she said something to me, and she wanted it in that moment. And I kept saying, like, “Are you sure? Are you sure?” And I took the opening and I made it happen. It was insane that on March 21, I made this decision, and in the next week, I had a house [in Florida] and was selling my [Connecticut] house the next week. It was crazy. [In Florida] you may not be social in that you’re talking to people, but you could just walk out of your house in January, take a walk and you might see other people. Or I’m doing a workout class, but you just interacted by walking to a beach versus being trapped inside your house. I now also see why people do join clubs or do things as they get older, because they just want to sort of interact. I’m not social. I don’t want to talk to people, but I just want to feel like I’m part of human life.
Do you feel like the loneliness has lifted?
One hundred percent. Moving to Connecticut was a strange choice for me, and I did it for a relationship, but it was a strange choice in retrospect. So, yeah, much happier.
Have you been dating?
I have not. I’ve been celibate. I’m not saying I think of myself as some hot commodity, but I do have several men pursuing me, and they think we’d be great for each other, so they’re trying to sort of push me to go out with them. But I know that either they’re too short, too tall, they’re not successful enough in their career, they don’t live in a place I want to live or visit… Like, I get to choose. And in the past, the reason I’ve been so s****y at relationships is because you get in a car that’s going the wrong direction, but you get in anyway when you’re younger, because your friends will say, Just go have fun. Like, I don’t want to. I’m not wasting any time with any of this bulls**t unless it’s a bull’s-eye. I’d rather be alone with a vibrator. I’ve got my kid, my friends. I’ve got my house. I’ve got my freaking cocktails. Get out of here. Go away.
Is there anything that scares you about this stage of your life?
Health, being alive, well, for my daughter, not getting hurt, we’re more fragile. I’m a person that has always been clumsy. I always knock into something. I stub my toe every day. So I just want to be healthy for my daughter, be around for all her milestones, to just take care of myself. I’m not preoccupied by my age. I’m not vain, but I’m aware of it, and I want to be healthy. She’s 15, and she wants to be with me so much and spend the day with me and we love each other and have such a great relationship. Today I said to my team, I am not working tomorrow. I don’t care what’s coming up. I want to be with her. I really don’t ultimately care about work. All this is fun and it’s great, and it’s gravy and it’s frosting and it’s sprinkles. That’s why you have to pay me a lot to go somewhere, not because I think I’m Madonna, but because you’re competing with me being with my kid.
What do you credit your success to?
Authenticity is what’s inside of your body, what’s coming out of your pores, what’s true to your soul, what’s honest, what’s unpopular. And the truth is, there’s nothing I would do or say that I didn’t believe in, and I wasn’t planning any of this. Like, I was really happy. I have a charity [BStrong Disaster Relief Initiative]. I have beautiful homes. I was bored in a lonely, big house, so I was just screwing around with makeup, and it turned into something. And I found my footing, because I found my home, my place. And really, the reason I went back to reality TV after those three years was because I missed humor and the connection with other people. But there was so much in the way of that, and now there’s nothing in the way of that. I really do love the people. I love sharing things with them and laughing with them and hearing their opinion. I love the parasocial relationship. I really do. I found my place, and I found my connection to the people, and there’s nothing that really gets in the way of that. Like, I know they’re going to want to see it, but I asked them, “Do you want to see this? It’s not relatable. It’s rich-person s**t.” They’re like, “We want to see it.” So I try to be sensitive to people’s financial situations and things like that, but it has to land.
So many celeb brands don’t take off.
I think the truth is, like Meghan [Markle] and [Prince] Harry [for example], I bet they’re good, decent people. They didn’t want the fame, but they didn’t want to give up the lifestyle, because it’s expensive. Now they’re living in Montecito [California], and it’s hard for things to land. It’s hard to land all of those things, and they wanted to do it in a timely manner because they realized there was a certain window of opportunity, so they made all these different deals. And business is really hard. I respect that relationship and that loyalty to each other, and I just don’t think it’s that easy. If it was so easy, everybody would be good at doing it.
Do you think you’ll ever retire?
I believe when they say stop, I’ll probably stop, when there’s no appetite for whatever I’m doing. We stop when we go up to the tables and the tables are going cold. We walk out of the casino. We don’t hang on for dear life if there’s nothing else to say or do or it’s giving desperate
What was your reaction when you found out you had a $100 million offer for Skinnygirl?
It was a seven-month negotiation. I just was wanting to feel safe because I don’t screw around with what I’m not willing to lose. I was a nobody coming in with alcohol. Everybody’s copied me, everybody from Ryan Reynolds to George Clooney. It’s one thing that I did have before. I was terrified. I had to cash out. I had no choice. I had too much to lose. You had to get your first pile and your first win on the board. People overplay their own hands. They think they’re too great. So I was gonna make this deal because someone’s gonna come and sue me, copy me, and I won’t be able to afford to deal with that.
Is there anything on your bucket list that you haven’t done yet?
I would love to be on Saturday Night Live. My new fantasy is to do something with Kathryn Hahn. I’m crying over her. I can’t even deal with her.
What do you think of people making money off things like OnlyFans?
What do I care what someone else does with their body? Don’t do anything unsafe. Don’t get hurt. But like, whatever, it’s an honest living; it’s transactional. It’s not shady. If I couldn’t afford to support my daughter, or even if I could but not live well, and I could go on OnlyFans, sure. Would I show my boobs on OnlyFans? Many people see my boobs for free. Many.
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