If you can’t handle the truth, you can’t handle Bethenny Frankel! The veteran Real Housewives of New York City star, 45, spoke exclusively with Us Weekly about why she dropped that cheating bombshell on costar Luann de Lesseps and discussed her own future on the long-running reality series.
Despite the uproar that her revelation caused, Frankel stands behind her decision to let de Lesseps know that the “Chic C’est la Vie” singer’s fiancé, Tom D’Agostino Jr., had allegedly been unfaithful.
“It wasn’t like this person was in a back alley doing a drug deal. [Tom was] in the Regency Hotel Midtown on their popular night, making out at the bar for two hours the night before [LuAnn’s] engagement party a week and a half after her engagement,” the Bravolebrity told Us at the launch party for her new Watermelon Lime Skinnygirl Margarita in NYC. “That’s the story, and I don’t know what else to say. To each their own.”
“I suck at relationships. I’m not giving her any advice. I’m saying these are the facts, and the question remains, Would you want to know?” she continued of her fellow Housewife. “…I do have the receipts to prove it. Well, I’ve got dates and time stamps, so yes, I’ve got the receipts to show LuAnn.” (Frankel recently finalized her painful and protracted divorce from Jason Hoppy.)
As viewers witnessed on the explosive Wednesday, August 17, episode of RHONY, Frankel told de Lesseps, 51, that she had photographic evidence of the Class With the Countess author’s husband-to-be hooking up with another woman at a hotel bar. Though de Lesseps couldn’t muster up the courage to look at the pictures, she broke down in tears and cried on camera to herself: “Tom, don’t tell me you’re that stupid. Please don’t tell me you’re that stupid.”
Although she recently implied that she is reconsidering her participation on RHONY in an August 12 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Frankel clarified to Us that she is simply in dire need of a break from all the drama. Frankel previously bowed out of the show in 2010 after its third season, but returned for season 7 in 2015.
“This isn’t a big dramatic thing, I’m trying to rinse this season off of me, it was hard,” the mom of Brynn, 6 — whom she shares with ex-husband Hoppy — noted. “I have a lot of things to think about. I have a bunch of businesses, I have a daughter, the Skinnygirl brand to protect, a production company. It’s a chessboard, and you have to move different pieces around at different times to see what fits.”
“I’m happy right now. It was a difficult season, and I did enjoy it, but I did not enjoy the end, and I did not enjoy the reunion,” the mogul, who is currently dating banker Dennis Shields, added. “That’s the stain that’s on me right now, but we’ll see how I feel [next season]. It’s hard to get rid of those stains.”
The Real Housewives of New York City airs on Bravo Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET.
