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Bethenny Frankel reacted to Lisa Rinna’s claim concerning Denise Richards in her new book, “You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk about It.” The Real Housewives of New York star claimed that the relationships on ‘Real Housewives’ aren’t “real,” before seemingly alluding to Melissa Gorga and Teresa Giudice.
Back in 2023, Bethenny shared that she was once friends with Lisa – until Bethenny stopped liking her. According to Bethenny, Lisa began to change after entering the ‘Housewives’ machine. On a past season of RHOBH, Lisa and Denise (who were longtime friends) became enemies while filming. In 2024, Bethenny made multiple videos slamming Lisa’s husband Harry Hamlin’s pasta sauce brand.
“So Lisa Rinna has a new book, and she said one very interesting thing, which was about her and Denise Richards,” said Bethenny in an Instagram video. “She doesn’t believe you should go on television in that type of environment with someone that you had a previous friendship with.”
“And I could not agree more,” she continued. “If you meet someone in that experience, that’s different because you’re both sort of starting in that experience and you have a common goal. And that’s why some of those relationships aren’t real. They seem real in the moment, but the biggest thing you ever discuss is that genre.”
Bethenny claimed there are “so many examples” – before she seemed to allude to Teresa’s past feud with her sister-in-law Melissa. (In 2022, the family members stopped speaking after Melissa and her husband Joe Gorga refused to attend Teresa’s wedding to Luis Ruelas, though they all recently reconciled.)
“On [Real Housewives of New Jersey], people that came in [as] family members, best friends … never speak again,” she said. “You saw, obviously, [what happened to] Lisa and Denise Richards. I mean, it’s not a place … to foster friendships. It’s not a place to foster much.”
“It’s a place to go if you just like need to make money, like when I went on,” she explained. “But it’s not a place that you stay [on] once you have any money. There’s just no reason to be on that type of reality television unless you need the Benjamins or the attention.”