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Bethenny Frankel made less than $10,000 for her first season of The Real Housewives of New York City. In fact, she made significantly less.
In a newly shared video on her TikTok page, Bethenny, who recently reacted to former castmate Luann de Lesseps‘ claims about their near-run-in on Broadway on her podcast, revealed what she made for season one while also explaining what prompted her “Bethenny clause” and how it changed entertainment.
“The contract said $7,250, which I did not dispute. I was a nobody. That was a lot of money to me. All I had was time on my hands, no kids, no family, no problem,” Bethenny revealed on TikTok.
But while she agreed to the amount, she did make one edit to her agreement.
“The only thing I did cross out was the thing that said Bravo would take a percentage of anything I made,” she shared. “Now, I was a nobody. I had nothing, and what would I care? But somewhere down deep inside of me, I understood conceptionally that that was wrong and that I was going places and I was going to do something, and no one was going to own any part of it.”
Years later, after she sold the cocktail portion of Skinnygirl for a large amount, Bethenny was spotlighted by articles from The Hollywood Reporter and Forbes, which she claims made the industry wake up.
“Bravo woke up. The entertainment industry woke up. Reality television woke up, and they created what is now referred to in the industry as the ‘Bethenny clause,’ which means that anybody going on reality TV has to give a percentage to the powers that be,” she explained.
Bethenny then said that she was telling her social media followers the story because she wanted them to know, “You are smarter than you think.”
“I was a nobody. I was not a business person. I had no institutional knowledge or experience in any of this. I read a contract. Something didn’t feel right to me, and I took it out. And it changed my entire life, and it changed the entertainment industry and their practices. So never assume anyone is smarter than you,” she advised.
As for her near-run-in with Luann in March, during which Luann was accused of storming out of Bad Cinderella‘s opening night after being seated close to Bethenny, Bethenny, who attended with 12-year-old daughter Bryn Hoppy, responded on her ReWives podcast after fans requested she do so.
“It must be painful and challenging and really obsessive to be so fixated on someone else,” Bethenny noted, according to an April 7 report from Page Six, adding that she feels “badly” for Luann, who “spends a lot of time talking about [her] in her cabaret and in the media and on podcasts.”
“It’s time to sort of focus on yourself versus being so consumed with somebody else,” Bethenny continued. “I wish her the very, very best, and I wish her a speedy recovery if she didn’t feel well during ‘Bad Cinderella’ halfway through.”
As RHONY fans may recall, Luann suggested after her alleged storm-off that she actually “left with [her] date” because she was “feeling bad.”