Bethenny Frankel is so horrified by the idea that “The Real Housewives of New York” will be just fine without her, we’re told, that she threw a fit after a top producer said the cast “don’t need” her.
After Frankel — who quit the show last August after eight seasons on and off as a member of the cast — slammed the show in a TV interview by saying that the ratings for the first episodes without her were weak, a production source told Page Six, “She’s jealous [because] she’s not on still. She made a rash decision [to leave] and she misses the limelight of it all.” They added, “And she can’t believe it will be as successful without her and may be better.”
The same source said that all the way back in November at BravoCon — the network’s new reality TV fest held in New York — Frankel was already so preoccupied with the thought that she wasn’t an essential part of the show that she flew off the handle when its longtime producer Barrie Bernstein said on a panel that the cast “don’t need Bethenny.”
Asked how her absence would affect the show, Bernstein said of Frankel, who sat out Seasons 4 through 6, “Bethenny of course is Bethenny. We did three seasons without her in the middle, it was successful, a lot of fun, some of the best trips.” Bernstein added, “And the ladies, they’ve done this for a while, and they don’t need Bethenny. I think this season we’re really excited to shine that.”
The source told us, “Bethenny got wind of it, got very angry and blocked [Bernstein] from her phone.”
Reps for Bravo, Bernstein and Frankel declined to comment.
After the first episode aired, Frankel — who has delivered over $17 million of PPE to health care workers fighting COVID-19 — said in an interview with “Extra,” “The ratings overall in television have never been higher and perhaps the ratings on ‘Real Housewives’ aren’t doing well because it’s sort of not maybe the content that is inspiring people to do what they need to do right now.”