Bethenny Frankel Says Andy Cohen ‘Despises’ Her for Reality TV Union Idea

Bethenny Frankel revealed her private {and professional} relationships with Andy Cohen have taken a toll due to her thought to unionize actuality TV casts and crews.

“I can inform you with nice certainty that everybody at Bravo seemingly despises me, together with Andy Cohen, as a result of it’s very private and since they’ve to guard the realm,” Frankel, 52, shared on the Thursday, August 31, episode of Rob Lowe’s “Actually!” podcast.

She continued: “It’s a really sophisticated factor I walked myself into while additionally burning bridges and seeming like I’m biting the hand that fed me, however I fed myself. There are lots of people who didn’t get fed.”

Earlier this yr, Frankel — who starred on eight seasons of Bravo’s The Actual Housewives of New York Metropolis — questioned why actuality TV employees weren’t part of the continuing Hollywood writers and actors guild strikes for truthful pay and higher contracts.

“We’ve all the time been the losers,” she said in a July 19 Instagram video. “Over the past writers strike, we had been offering all of the leisure and that’s actually when the gold rush of actuality TV began.”

Frankel went on to notice that whereas she earned tens of millions due to her actuality TV profession, little of the cash got here from showing on RHONY. “I’ve by no means made a single residual,” she claimed. “So both I’m lacking one thing or we’re getting screwed too.”

Her feedback gained additional momentum following her three-part podcast interview with Vanderpump Guidelines’ Raquel Leviss (who now goes by Rachel). Throughout the interview, Frankel defended Leviss, 28, after she acquired extreme on-line hate due to her affair with costar Tom Sandoval.

“Instantly after I [interviewed Raquel], I then come again with a set of factors which are a leaping off level — being an individual that negotiates for a residing — saying, ‘These are issues that I feel are far, 10 factors, that folks ought to obtain,’ as a result of I knew that I wasn’t going to have the ability to begin a union in an evening,” she defined on Lowe’s podcast. “So, within the meantime, there needs to be this modification of language that goes into contracts as a result of for 3 a long time, there’s been no principal, no governor, nobody in control of this complete group.”

Following the success of the interview, SAG-AFTRA reached out to Frankel to assist help her thought for a actuality TV union. “And whereas we’re speaking a few union and what that may appear like, additionally they need to know within the brief time period what they might do to assist,” she said. “And I used to be saying there needs to be some language, some contract language that goes into these contracts that everyone in actuality is aware of to incorporate.”

Frankel added: “That style wants a union as a result of these folks aren’t even studying different folks’s phrases. They’re taking such dangers by being their very own voice,” Frankel defined. “And proper now, throughout this strike, they’re going to be those that everyone goes to for reasonable labor.”

Final week, Frankel revealed that she and Cohen, 55, haven’t talked since she made her preliminary strike feedback. “Some folks say to me, ‘Oh, wow, is Andy mad you’re doing this? Have you ever spoken to him?’ And I say, I’ve not, however I’m certain he’s,” she stated throughout an episode of her “Simply B” podcast. “And this isn’t a goal on Andy. This isn’t a goal on Bravo. That is a few systemic difficulty within the leisure business.”