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Bethenny Frankel accused Andy Cohen of ambushing her on Watch What Happens Live during a recent episode of her podcast.
Days after the Real Housewives of New York City alum, 52, slammed Andy, 55, for asking “problematic” questions on his talk show and amid claims of misconduct by Bravo, Bethenny told listeners that Andy gained wealth on the backs of Real Housewives and fired back at Jessel Taank, 43, for labeling her the “most overrated housewife.”
“If you have someone who’s on [RHONY] now in a post-successful era, they’re gonna wanna squeeze that sponge for any of amount of liquid they can squeeze it for,” Bethenny said on the October 3 episode of ReWives, via Page Six. “And you can never blame them. You cannot blame the talent because they need the relevance, the fame — it’s why they went on the show.”
In addition to Jessel suggesting Bethenny is “overrated,” she also told Andy on Sunday night that she feels the RHONY alum “is going off the rails.”
But according to Bethenny, she believes Jessel dissed her because the question was “planted and produced.”
“The way it works on Watch What Happens Live is in the dressing room, Andy comes in and talks about what he wants to talk about,” she told her listeners.
Still, a production source said, “This is absolutely false,” as a Bravo spokesperson confirmed there are “no pre-interviews.”
“WWHL does not conduct pre-interviews. Naturally, Andy stops by the green rooms to greet his guests before the show, but he does not discuss specific questions or topics in advance, unless the guest initiates a topic that is personally sensitive to them. And certainly Andy nor any WWHL producer is feeding answers to questions,” the Bravo spokesperson explained.
Bethenny also said on her podcast that RHONY “doesn’t do well” and only garners a “couple hundred thousand” viewers each week. Meanwhile, as noted by Bravo Ratings on Twitter, the show’s September 27 episode received over 500,000 viewers.
“[The show] really needs the press,” Bethenny alleged. “A woman on that show who’s not relevant yet — well, who’s new, so by definition you’re not that relevant, and you’re on a show that has arced and is on the back end.”
But a production source noted that Jessel has been a breakout.
“[She] has recently been on the cover of Vogue India, done interviews with Variety and CNN, has been a guest on Access Hollywood and Crooked Media’s Keep It! podcast, among several others,” they shared.
Whatever the case, Bethenny said she “[doesn’t] blame the person sitting in the chair” when it comes to WWHL because the series maintains a “clickbait environment.” In fact, during an episode of Just B With Bethenny, via Bravo Snark Side on Instagram, she claimed she was ambushed by Andy during a December 2020 episode.
“It was very obvious to the viewers that there was an ambush,” she stated. “And Jeff Lewis, who I really do like and who I had a nice conversion with about it afterwards, and who I don’t blame because he too is talent on the show, trying to make a living, and trying to promote what he’s promoting … He was asked very provocative questions.”
While Bethenny felt that both Jeff and Andy “really came for [her]” over her ReWives podcast, she said the show is “definitely not about bashing people.” Instead, according to her, it’s about “breaking down episodes of a franchise that I was part of and relating it to modern-day issues.”
After launching ReWives in late 2022, Bethenny said Andy came for her in the media, which surprised her due to their past friendship.
“As someone who thought they were his friend on some level, Andy didn’t come to me directly to tell me what he thought about the show that I was doing. He went out and talked about it in the media publicly and I think it boomeranged on him because it was several weeks of bad PR for him in saying that he trashed it and of course I’m entitled to talk about something that I was as much a part of as he was,” she noted, pointing out that Andy “never got dirty.”
“It backfired on him because he became a housewife,” she continued. “He took the bait and he kind of publicly said something, said several things negative against me and then he tried to double-down on his own show and do it again because it is his own show and he’s protected there. It also backfired because the audience thought that he and Jeff had ambushed [me.”
In closing, Bethenny accused Andy of using the women of the Real Housewives franchise to get rich.
“Andy Cohen has built a fortune and bought beach houses on the backs of 180 women,” she stated. “We get filthy while he remains clean and gets filthy rich.”
“Maybe I am biting the hand that feeds me and maybe that hand deserves to be bitten,” she added.
The Real Housewives of New York City season 14 airs Sundays at 9/8c on Bravo.
