Bethenny Frankel is taking credit for the success of The Real Housewives of New York City. In a new interview, the Bravo star says she is the reason the ratings went up on RHONY following her return to the series… but did the ratings actually go up?
As fans well know, Bethenny was one of the original wives when the show began in March 2008 but temporarily left the show years later to pursue other projects.
“I was asked to be on Manhattan Moms, which was a show about mothers, and they ended up turning it into the Housewives after we had wrapped,” Bethenny revealed to New Zealand’s Stuff on May 5. “I was just a single, broke, natural-foods chef trying to make a living.”
Bethenny became so popular with viewers after starring on the show’s first three seasons that she was given her own spinoff series, Bethenny Ever After, with her now-ex-husband Jason Hoppy and also pursued her own talk show, Bethenny, which aired for just one season on FOX. Then, after her marriage came to an end and her talk show was canceled, Bethenny returned to The Real Housewives of New York City for season seven.
“I left and did a spin-off,” she said. “I felt [Real Housewives] was a little bit dirty, a little bit dark and I left and the ratings went down significantly.”
Season three of The Real Housewives of New York City averaged about 2.01 million viewers per episode. Meanwhile, despite Bethenny’s claim, the fourth season of the reality series averaged about 2.03 million viewers.
During the next two seasons, many fans of the show tuned out and the ratings dropped significantly. In fact, neither season five nor season six cracked the 2 million viewer mark for any of their episodes. Instead, season five averaged around 1.58 million viewers while season six averaged just 1.28 million viewers.
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“I was courted back and the ratings increased significantly so I’m proud of that,” she bragged.
After Bethenny’s return, the average amount of viewers actually saw a slight dip as they went down to 1.27 million for season 7. They then went back up to 1.52 million viewers for season 8 and 1.50 million viewers for season 9.
“There was a lot of pressure,” Bethenny continued. “There is always a time that you should leave so I’m right now thinking about when that time is. You can overstay your welcome. You don’t want to be the last one at the party.”
The season 10 ratings thus far are as follows:
April 4: 1,393,000
April 11: 1,272,000
April 18: 1,338,000
April 25: 1,434,000
May 2: 1,369,000
The Real Housewives of New York City season 10 airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Bravo TV.
Photo Credit: JOHN NACION/startraksphoto.com