Bethenny Frankel

Bethenny Frankel, also known as Bethenny Parisella, (born November 4, 1970) is an American television personality, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and author. She was the runner-up on the NBC reality competition series The Apprentice: Martha Stewart in 2005. Frankel is best known as an original cast member of the Bravo reality television series The Real Housewives of New York City, starring in 8 of the 14 seasons since its 2008 premiere. Her spin-off series Bethenny Ever After aired three seasons from 2010–2012, and Bethenny & Fredrik aired one season in 2018. She also headlined the Fox daytime talk show Bethenny (2013–2014) and the HBO Max reality competition series The Big Shot with Bethenny (2021).
Outside of her work in television, Frankel is the founder of Skinnygirl, a lifestyle brand, and BStrong, a philanthropic organization that has provided disaster relief. She is also the author of four self-help books, the host of two podcasts and a YouTuber.
Frankel is the only child of Robert J. Frankel, a horse trainer, and Bernadette Birk, an interior designer and college professor. Her father was German-Jewish, whereas her mother was a Roman Catholic of Italian descent who converted to Judaism. Bethenny was raised Roman Catholic, and completed all of her sacraments including communion and confirmation. Her parents divorced when Frankel was four years old. When she was five, her mother married horse trainer John Parisella. Frankel describes her childhood as difficult. Frankel says her mother "was always drinking" and often argued violently with her stepfather.
Frankel originally grew up in Forest Hills, New York but moved many times and attended multiple schools before attending boarding school. She went to St. Agnes Cathedral School in Rockville Centre, New York and Holy Child Academy in Old Westbury, New York but graduated in 1988 from Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She attended Boston University for two years, and graduated with a degree in psychology and communications from New York University. She later attended the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City.
In 1992, Frankel moved to Los Angeles with hopes of being an actress. While she landed some small acting roles, she worked as an assistant to Kathy Hilton, sometimes taking her daughters Paris and Nikki out for ice cream or picking them up from school. She was also a personal assistant to Jerry Bruckheimer and Linda Bruckheimer. During this time, Frankel also worked as a production assistant on the set of Saved by the Bell. Frankel used these connections to start her first company, called "In Any Event", a party-planning business, which was short-lived. Her next entrepreneurial enterprise was Princess Pashmina, a business selling pashmina scarves she bought wholesale from an Indian manufacturer.
In 2003, Frankel started BethennyBakes, a baking business that made egg-free, wheat-free and dairy-free cookies and meal delivery in New York City. It was featured on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, a reality competition series, in 2005, in which Frankel was the first runner-up to the competition winner. BethennyBakes closed in 2006. Frankel became a spokesperson for Pepperidge Farms low-calorie line of bread.
In 2008, Frankel began starring in the reality television series The Real Housewives of New York City, which premiered in March on Bravo. In June 2010, Frankel appeared in the Bravo reality series Bethenny Getting Married? (later retitled Bethenny Ever After), which documented her engagement and marriage to Jason Hoppy as well as the birth of their daughter. The series premiere was Bravo's highest-rated at the time, garnering 2.1 million viewers. In September 2010, Frankel announced her exit from The Real Housewives of New York City following its third season. In November, she competed in the reality competition series Skating with the Stars and finished in second place.
Frankel taped the pilot of a talk show, Bethenny, in June 2011. The syndicated daytime talk show was created and co-produced by Ellen DeGeneres. It had a test run in 2012 in limited markets, and officially premiered in September 2013. It was canceled in February 2014 after one season, although episodes continued to run since 170 were taped. Frankel rejoined The Real Housewives of New York City for its seventh season, which premiered in April 2015.
In March 2019, Deadline Hollywood reported Frankel had signed a deal with MGM Television and its chairman, Mark Burnett, to produce and star in future unscripted television projects. Frankel starred in the HBO Max reality competition series titled The Big Shot with Bethenny, which she also produced alongside Burnett. The series featured "aspiring business moguls compete for a job on Frankel's executive team." The show underperformed, and in June 2021, Frankel announced she no longer had a deal with MGM Television. In August of the same year, she announced her departure from The Real Housewives of New York City.
In 2022, the Jewish Journal named Frankel one of "The Top 10 Jewish Reality TV Stars of All Time".
In March 2009, Frankel's book, Naturally Thin: Unleash Your SkinnyGirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting, was published. The SkinnyGirl Dish: Easy Recipes for Your Naturally Thin Life, was published in December of the same year. In spring 2010, she released an exercise DVD, Body by Bethenny, and an audiobook, The Skinnygirl Rules, which summarized her two prior books. In 2011, Frankel published A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life. In December 2012, she published a novel, Skinnydipping.
Frankel created a pre-packaged margarita line named Skinnygirl Margarita in 2009. This was the foundation product for Skinnygirl Cocktails. The cocktail line was sold to Beam Global for a reported $120 million in 2011, but Frankel kept the Skinnygirl brand name to sell a variety of foods including dips, shakes, candy, deli meat, sweeteners, jellies, popcorn, and salad dressings. She sells Skinnygirl shapewear, apparel, and accessories on the Home Shopping Network. Frankel developed a Skinnygirl cookware line sold at TJMaxx and Marshalls stores, which premiered in 2021.
In one of her earliest activities in philanthropy, Frankel posed nude for a PETA billboard in September 2009 for its "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign, which used celebrities and other personalities.
Frankel is the founder of BStrong, a philanthropic arm originally formed to assist women, which has increasingly participated in disaster relief around the world. In 2017, the organization raised $300,000 in donations and supplies for the victims of Hurricane Harvey, after which Frankel visited Houston, Texas to distribute these items. In the same year, Frankel traveled to Mexico City and Jojutla, Mexico following the Puebla earthquake to raise awareness for the disaster's recovery efforts, for which BStrong also raised $150,000. Also in the same year, Frankel chartered four planes to Puerto Rico and distributed medical supplies, food, water, and hygiene products in assisting with Hurricane Maria relief efforts. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, BStrong raised funds and delivered personal protective equipment such as masks, goggles, gowns, and sheets to hospitals in the U.S. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, she supported Ukraine with humanitarian aid.
In the wake of the 2023 SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, Frankel called for reality television personalities to go on strike and to unionize. She stated that reality television personalities are subject to exploitation and intense scrutiny and deserve increased protection and worker's rights. Frankel's proposals for a union would call for reality television personalities to earn residual-like payments, a minimum wage of $5,000 per episodic appearance with a raise for each season, retrospective compensation, and the freedom to quit filming at any time without risking financial penalty. Frankel has enlisted attorneys Bryan Freedman and Mark Geragos to investigate the problematic treatment of reality television personalities.
In a November 2022 episode of her podcast, Just B With Bethenny Frankel, Frankel described her religious identity thus: "I grew up with a stepfather who was Catholic, so I also went to church. I've had a sort of mutt upbringing of religion and thus ended up not being religious at all but being spiritual and cultural. So culturally, many people would think that I am Jewish. I have a last name that's Jewish. I have family that's Jewish. I am Jewish." During that same podcast, she criticized musical artist Kanye West for antisemitic comments he had recently made.
Frankel was married to entertainment executive Peter Sussman from 1996 to 1997. In March 2010, she married pharmaceutical sales executive Jason Hoppy. They have one daughter. After the couple separated in December 2012, Frankel filed for divorce in January 2013. A temporary custody agreement was reached in June 2014, followed by a financial settlement in July 2016. However, due to ongoing litigation over child custody, Frankel and Hoppy's divorce was not finalized until January 2021.
Frankel dated banker Dennis Shields from 2016 to August 2018, when Shields was found dead of an apparent accidental overdose of pain medication after back surgery. Although Shields proposed to Frankel in April 2018 and she wore his engagement ring, the relationship was off-again, on-again for its duration. She met film producer and commercial real estate developer Paul Bernon on a dating app in 2018 and they were engaged in 2021, but Frankel said she ended the relationship after nearly six years because she was not happy.
Frankel has a severe fish allergy and was hospitalized in December 2018 after consuming soup that contained fish. She has since advocated airlines stop serving fish, stating that it is a hazard to passengers with fish allergies to be in the presence of cooked seafood in an enclosed commercial airline jet.