[UPDATE: Aug. 10, 5:04 p.m. ET – The medical examiner’s office is investigating the death of a man believed to be Dennis Shields, found at the Trump Tower. The investigation is ongoing, and the NYC Chief Medical Examiner’s Office will release cause and manner of death when completed.]
In a podcast published just days before his alleged death, Dennis Shields talked about his on-again, off-again relationship with Real Housewives of New York star Bethenny Frankel.
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According to Page Six, Shields thought he was overdosing on prescription pills, and asked an assistant to administer Narcan, a drug used to reverse the effects of opioid overdose. Although the assistant used the Narcan, Shields lost consciousness and was pronounced dead minutes later.
It is not clear if Shields and Frankel were still a couple at the time of his death, but Shields had nothing but good things to say about her in an interview with Listen Up Show host Mitchell Chadrow, reports The Blast.
“About four weeks ago, we were still together,” Shields said. He jokingly told Chadrow he needed to Google Frankel to find updates on their relationship.
Shields also praised Frankel for raising more than $60 million to help Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and continuing to help relief efforts there. He also praised her as a “great mom.”
Chadrow later asked what it was like to live in Trump Tower, now that Donald Trump is president.
“It’s an experience,” Shields replied. He said police and the Secret Service now have everything “down to a science” and try to be “unobtrusive” for the residents. Living in Trump Tower is “never dull,” Shields said.
Shields was the chairman and founder of Esquire Bank and crowd funding company Yield Street.
Frankel and Shields knew each other for almost three decades and began dating in 2016. In a recent appearance on Steve Harvey’s show, Frankel described their relationship as complicated.
“I’ve been with someone on and off for years. It’s like a partnership where if we’re not being teammates and it’s not working and one man is down, then the other man is down,” Frankel said in May. “We’re trying to really kind of be good partners and be good teammates and I think relationships oddly are — and this sounds cold — but a little bit like business.”
She continued, “If both people aren’t happy about it but slightly uncomfortable and giving up something or giving in [to] something, it doesn’t work. So both partners have to say, ‘All right, I’m in it for this.’ And I think we might be at that point, believe it or not. I haven’t said that to anyone yet.”
Frankel was married to Peter Sussman from 1996 to 1997 and Jason Hoppy from 2010 to 2016. She has a daughter with Hoppy.
Photo credit: Josiah Kamau/BuzzFoto via Getty Images
