Bethenny Frankel may have a reported net worth of $25 million at the moment but it wasn’t always that way.
Before the success of The Real Housewives of New York City and her popular Skinnygirl brand, the longtime reality star was paid a rather small amount for appearing on the Bravo TV reality series’ first season in 2008.
“I shouldn’t have been taken seriously in the beginning; I had no value,” Bethenny revealed to In Style about her finances. “Or I didn’t know the value I would have yet. I was a person that Bravo was hiring for $7,250 for the entire first season of [‘Real Housewives’].”
Although Bethenny may have been given a low-ball offer at the start of her career in reality television, she ultimately ended up making out just fine due to a special clause that was added to her contract with the network.
“I knew what I wanted, which was to keep anything that I did in business,” she explained. “If you go on a reality show, you have to give a percentage [of any business you promote on the show] to the network — but I never did that. The industry ended up calling it ‘The Bethenny Clause.’”
Years later, when she sold her Skinnygirl Cocktails for an alleged $100 million, Bethenny wasn’t forced to give a dime of that to Bravo TV. That said, she did make a few mistakes when it came to her finances, one of which affected the bottom line of her profits.
“My biggest money mistake was not checking the right box on a contract about whether my company was an LLC or an S Corp,” she said. “It cost me millions of dollars when I sold. But that’s just a mistake. [It’s important to have] the right business managers and accountants and all that type of stuff.”
Now appearing on the 10th season of RHONY, Bethenny has been able to negotiate her contract way up and, as of 2015, she was reportedly making $1 million for each season, which is broken down into $40,000 per episode.
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