Bethenny Frankel Walks Back Tweet Slamming Meghan Markle After Backlash, Oprah Interview

Bethenny Frankel is walking back her criticism of Meghan Markle after getting backlash for negative comments about the Duchess of Sussex made ahead of her sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday. After Markle’s tell-all alongside husband Prince Harry, during which Markle revealed she had experienced thoughts of self-harm after joining the royal family, The Real Housewives of New York City alum took to Twitter to say she had reconsidered her initial comments.

“I watched [Meghan and Harry] sit down. Emotional distress & racism must feel suffocating & powerless. I’m a polarizing, unfiltered(often to a fault)flawed person w a voice. When I heard of the interview, during a pandemic, it felt like a surprising choice. I’m sorry if it hurt or offended you,” Frankel tweeted. Just hours before, the SkinnyGirl founder slammed Markle for her complaints about the royal family and treatment by British tabloids, tweeting flippantly that the former Suits actress could “cry me a river.”

The former Bravo star added that she gives “Harry a break,” after what his late mother, Princess Diana, went through before her death. “I [100 percent] give Harry a break. This isn’t the way to generate less press & cannot be filed under the guise of wanting privacy to prevent a repeat of previous events,” she wrote, promoting her podcast, Just B as being “littered with [her] opinion.”

She continued of her own appearances on RHONY, “I chose reality tv, to work towards making $, to be scrutinized & criticized. I took the trappings & the beatings along with it. It’s a rose w petals & thorns. People beg to enter the often toxic institution I signed up for. That WAS the life I chose. You can’t play stupid & smart.”

Frankel’s initial tweets were called tone-deaf and insensitive by many of her followers, including Selling Sunset‘s Chrishell Stause. “Not a white housewife comparing her struggle to Meghan’s. A woman of color joining the Royal Family. It’s the delusion for me,” she responded to Frankel’s initial tweet. “Everyone is working overtime trying to silence her. Let us hear what she has to say!” She added in another tweet, “Too bad there isn’t a whole aristocracy trying to silence you, because you could have left this one in the drafts.”