Still BFFs? Bethenny Frankel opened up about her friendship with Andy Cohen — and revealed the pair are still on good terms despite the Bravo boss claiming she “trashed” the Real Housewives franchise.
“We totally are pals and we take beach walks and most of what we talk about on those walks is the Housewives, of this city, that city, this person, that person,” Frankel, 52, said during the Tuesday, November 29, episode of Today With Hoda & Jenna. “I texted him when [my podcast came out] and he said, ‘Oh, fun. I’m glad to see you embrace the Housewives.”
Earlier this month, Frankel announced she was launching a Housewives rewatch podcast, titled “Rewives,” so that she could return to the franchise “on my terms.”
“For those of you who don’t understand why I did it, because I get that I walked away, I didn’t want to be a part of it, it wasn’t what I thought I should be doing at [that point in] my life, and I wasn’t proud of it,” the Naturally Thin author wrote via her Instagram Story on November 13.
She continued: “This is my perspective, my story, my show, my experience, versus a situation where we didn’t control the editing, and we didn’t control the process, and we didn’t control who we surrounded ourselves with and the trips we went on, we weren’t in charge.
The Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen host, 54, then responded to the news by telling Page Six he was “shocked” to hear about the podcast after Frankel previously dubbed the franchise a “toxic” environment.
On Tuesday, the Skinnygirl founder confirmed that Cohen’s initial reaction to her new venture was “definitely” because she had previously shared that she was “glad” to longer be featured on the reality series.
“Which I am. But they’re not mutually exclusive,” the chef said. “I’m glad I’m not there, but I do get the right to talk about it. I did it for a quarter of my life.”
While the New York native denied that she “trashed the Housewives,” she did admit to saying it became “toxic for me,” and that the Bravo series had changed from what it “was in the beginning” due to increased “conflict.”
When speaking exclusively to Us Weekly earlier this month about the Real Housewives of New York City spinoff, RHONY: Legacy, Cohen revealed that Frankel isn’t “friends with any of the women anymore” and would likely not be appearing on the show any time soon.
“The great thing that I’ve loved about the legacy women is through the years they actually do hang out when the cameras aren’t rolling. They are really in touch,” he told Us. “They overlap in each other’s lives. Bethenny now lives in Connecticut and she’s just kind of living her best life in her own universe. So, I’m not sure given how she feels about the show at this point, that it even makes any sense [for her to return].”
Despite their differing viewpoints, Frankel told cohosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager that she and Cohen are able to separate business from their friendship.
“We are both also in this business and we are also friends and we also share Housewives stuff where he was producing the show that I was on,” she said. “So there’s all these different dynamics where I guess they overlap.”
Kat Pettibone
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