Bethenny Frankel Claims Andy Cohen, Bravo ‘Despise’ Her Over Union Efforts

Bethenny Frankel revealed that her relationship with Andy Cohen has suffered because of her work on unionizing reality TV crews and casts. “I can tell you with great certainty that everyone at Bravo likely despises me, including Andy Cohen, because it’s very personal and because they have to protect the realm,” Frankel, 52, said on the Aug. 31, episode of Rob Lowe’s podcast Literally!. She added, “It’s a very complicated thing I walked myself into whilst also burning bridges and seeming like I’m biting the hand that fed me, but I fed myself. There are a lot of people who didn’t get fed.” Frankel, who starred on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New York City for eight seasons, questioned why reality TV workers were not involved in the ongoing Hollywood writers and actors guild strikes for better wages and working conditions. “We’ve always been the losers,” she said in an Instagram video on July 19. “During the last writers strike, we were providing all the entertainment, and that’s really when the gold rush of reality TV started.”

Despite earning millions from her reality TV career, Frankel said she made little money from appearing on RHONY. “I have never made a single residual,” she claimed. “So either I’m missing something, or we’re getting screwed too.” The remarks gathered further traction after Frankel spoke with Vanderpump Rules’ Raquel Leviss (who has since changed her name to Rachel) in a three-part podcast interview. In the interview, Frankel defended Leviss after she received hate online due to her affair with co-star Tom Sandoval. “Immediately after I [interviewed Raquel], I then come back with a set of points that are a jumping off point — being a person that negotiates for a living — saying, ‘These are things that I think are far, 10 points, that people should receive,’ because I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to start a union in a night,” she said on Lowe’s podcast. “So, in the meantime, there should be this modification of language that goes into contracts because, for three decades, there’s been no principal, no governor, no one in charge of this whole group.”

SAG-AFTRA contacted Frankel to support her union proposal in response to the interview’s success. “And while we’re talking about a union and what that would look like, they also want to know in the short term what they could do to help,” she stated. “And I was saying there should be some language, some contract language that goes into these contracts that everybody in reality knows to include.” Frankel continued, “That genre needs a union because those people aren’t even reading other people’s words. They’re taking such risks by being their own voice,” Frankel explained. “And right now, during this strike, they’re going to be the ones that everybody goes to for cheap labor.” Frankel revealed last week that she and Cohen, 55, have not spoken since she made her initial strike remarks. “Some people say to me, ‘Oh, wow, is Andy mad you’re doing this? Have you spoken to him?’ And I say, I have not, but I’m sure he is,” she said in an episode of her podcast, Just B. “And this is not a target on Andy. This is not a target on Bravo. This is about a systemic issue in the entertainment industry.”