I was totally honest and open about everything, and I went for it. Feloni: How can you be authentic when you have a camera crew around you and you have producers trying to follow a narrative? Frankel: Well, the producers aren't in the same room.
You do have cameras — but I've been doing this for so long. I did it on "The Apprentice. They don't even speak to you. You're literally props. You get used to that sort of skill set. Maybe I'm different because of that. That was like boot-camp training, just "cameras do not exist.
Frankel: I never think about the cameras. I just don't. I'm used to it. It's just a weird skill set. I feel totally natural with it, and it's always truthful. From my perspective, it's always real. It's not manufactured.
It's just what's going on. But it's what's going on within those people. You know what I mean? People will say, "Oh, is it real? Would you really have that conversation? But if I weren't in this room with you, I wouldn't have this exact conversation either. It's like, that's the show that I'm on with these people. This is who I'm having lunch with. This is who I'm interacting with. And these are the conversations that I'm having with these people. Feloni: Is that person in front of the camera a different person from who you are, like, around your family or your friends in private?
Frankel: I don't think so, no. I can be very tough on the show and very nice on the show, and I can be very tough in my other life and very nice. You don't see me as a mother, which is when I'm definitely my happiest, my softest, my most selfless. With my dogs too. You don't really see that. You don't get to see what I really am like in a relationship. You just can imagine that it's like this Cruella de Vil, whipping whoever I'm in a relationship with, which it's not like that at all. I'm a pretty good partner.
You don't get to see everything, which is OK, which is good for me. You don't have to show every single thing. Feloni: At what point on the show did you realize that, OK, this is actually going to be a chance where I could build a business? Frankel: I knew that I was going to get a spin-off. I don't know why; I just knew it. I knew it early on. I think I knew it in the first season. I could just feel it.
I felt different, to be honest. I felt different. Frankel: I just understood what was going on. Andy Cohen called me the Greek chorus and the narrator. I don't think he says that anymore, because I don't think anyone would like him to say that anymore. But I was able to connect to that audience and understand that they don't understand what it's like to pack a car to go to the Hamptons, and that you're literally packing like you're moving to Croatia to drive two hours to see everybody that you already know, that you probably saw this morning at the bagel store on the way there.
It's like a satire. I think that I had this way of connecting and narrating and commenting. I just knew that I was a valuable asset in this, just because I'm an honest storyteller, and there's a lot of comedy along the way. Feloni: On the show, and when you had a spin-off, you shared some really intimate moments, such as insights into your pregnancy, the birth of your daughter, your relationship. Did it ever feel like a sacrifice? Frankel: Yes, it's felt like a sacrifice, but it's a very high-paid sacrifice.
It's a job, and you're not always comfortable at your job. I'm very lucky to have this job. If I were in a coal mine or working in asbestos, I would not like my job maybe. It's sort of like, "This week sucks. I look like crap on the show — physically, mentally.
I said something stupid. It is real, it is my interaction, but I am being paid. Also, you'd rather have who I really am than be faking it. Many people — and I know exactly who they are that are on these shows — are kind of acting. They're being their best self. They're saying what they think they should say.
They're saying what the viewer would want them to say. I don't do that. I say what I really feel, and sometimes people get pissed off.
Because sometimes what I say could piss people off, but that's what I was really feeling. I'm giving it to you real. You may not like it, but it's how I really feel about it. Feloni: I've actually seen a bunch of the show now. Things could get pretty crazy. Did you ever feel like maybe if there was a crazy fight or just something really silly on the show that that could negatively impact your business?
Frankel: There are a lot of things that can negatively impact your business. You don't get paid this to not take risks, and it's very scary. I wonder when the ride will stop. I don't think it will be very long before the ride stops, because I've done incredibly well. I have so much more to risk than when I started.
I have partners that are multibillion-dollar corporations. I can't screw around. This is a big juggernaut business now. By the same token, the show helps this big juggernaut business.
There's a fine line. Feloni: In doing deals, have you ever had to defend yourself for being on a show that could get pretty crazy sometimes? Frankel: I've transcended the having to defend the show, because of all the amazing success that I've created despite the show, and the relief efforts. Feloni: At what point did you realize that you didn't have to scrape by anymore? Frankel: Yeah. It took me a while to start purchasing things and paying expensive bills for things that I would have cringed at then.
When you buy houses and you get into another level, every day it's something expensive. I would have been hysterically crying. Frankel: It's bigger game hunting now. But by the same token, I know that I don't have to do any of the things that I'm doing, and it gives me a freedom.
It gives me an exit strategy if I want it. But I haven't really done everything that I want to do in business.
I look at business for myself — and I guess a little bit reality TV — as when the tables are hot, you press your bets. Right now the tables are hot, knock on wood. If they go cold, I'll walk. That's how I feel. I don't want to be mentally stressed and unhappy. I have moments on "Real Housewives" where I feel that way. And yeah, I think to myself, is this really worth it?
I'm balancing weighing the options and how long I should do it for. It's always a back-and-forth conversation. Frankel: Maybe. Depends on the number. People have circled. I've just had someone circle, just had someone offer. It'd have to be the right number and the right strategic partner. Feloni: When I'm looking at what you've been saying, it seems like having total control of your brand is very important to you.
But Skinnygirl, is that just an element of it? Like, you'd be able to do something else after? There's the brand of Bethenny. There's the B brand. There's the brand of me just being a woman and a mother and an entrepreneur. It could be called anything. It's a great feeling. Feloni: Where does "Real Housewives" factor into this now, because now you're established, you have your brand — what do you want to get from the show at this point?
Frankel: I still love this audience so much. This is my audience. I can be in a restaurant, I can be in a mall, and I can look at somebody and I know that they watch, that they know who I am. I know that we connect. I know it's a mom who is multitasking, trying to work, trying to get their kids to school, who is a certain age, who wants to be a little healthy, is just trying to look OK to get through the day, and not overly spoiled. I know exactly who my customer is.
I could literally point them out on a street. We connect. We have a relationship. They've helped me create one of the largest private relief efforts in history.
They tell me when there's an infringement on a trademark of Skinnygirl in another country. They are my people, and so I love that connection. This audience is connected to "Housewives," and they love the fodder, and they can relate to this in their cul-de-sac. Something's going on that's similar at their country club, at their school, at their PTA. Frankel: I define success through my daughter. I really do.
I'm the most happy when we've connected and we've spent days together. Frankel: She's 8. We call it "camp mommy" — I spend so much time with her. That's the most rewarding, fulfilling thing to feel that you're a good mother and that you're nurturing your child and reading books with them at night.
She's not a very on-the-phone, on-the-computer kid, so I feel that that's a success, because I love her just being a free-range kid. Frankel began calling around to tequila companies. She had one hit—Frangelico paid her four hundred thousand dollars to create and market a drink called the Skinnygirl Frangelini—but none of the major tequila companies were interested in making the Skinnygirl Margarita. She credits Brian Dow, her former agent, with orchestrating her first deal.
He put her in touch with David Kanbar, a former executive at Skyy, the vodka company, and Kanbar and Frankel went into business together with the premixed cocktail—you poured it straight from the bottle. In , Skinnygirl was the fastest-selling spirits brand in the U. Because most liquor is consumed by men, it has traditionally been marketed to them. The moms look nice. When Frankel arrived, there was a line of shoppers waiting to meet her. A couple, Rob and Gina Cristino, were near the front of the line.
Terry Bose and Jennifer Torsiello greeted Frankel as if she were a neighbor. They listed Skinnygirl products admiringly. I asked Torsiello if she was a fan of other celebrity brands. I visited Frankel at her apartment, a two-bedroom in SoHo, where she and her daughter, Bryn, had just moved, post-divorce.
While spacious, it does not suggest moguldom. Frankel was at the head of a dark-wood dining-room table, her hair wet, wearing a fluffy white bathrobe, an hour before a party. A makeup artist put the finishing touches on her face, while a few young female assistants sat around her, typing on MacBooks.
Alexandra Cohen had been waiting to ask her a question about a new product: cucumber-dill pretzel thins. Sometimes people are averse. Cohen nodded. She handed the package to me. The pretzels were round and thin—like Communion wafers covered with onion powder.
Visiting Frankel feels oddly familiar when you have already spent many virtual hours in her home. A source close to Hoppy says that Frankel volunteered to move out. And, if you put me with crazy people, things happen. But the new incarnation of Skinnygirl is, for the most part, a brand-licensing business, in the tradition of Kathy Ireland and Martha Stewart.
Manufacturers create the product and pay a fixed royalty rate to license the Skinnygirl name—and the image of the skinny woman. In a typical contract, the licensee pays Frankel between eight and ten per cent of the wholesale revenue.
Her agent, Perry Wolfman, at C. Frankel said that this is the way she likes it. Given her position as both C. She has rented another apartment, several blocks away, with chevron-patterned carpets in Skinnygirl red, a silk-screened portrait of the New York Housewives in the style of Andy Warhol, and a bedroom in back, for watching TV. My opinions of the products varied. I found the Sparklers—flavored water—to be nauseating: full of artificial flavors that reminded me of gas-station fuzzy navels.
The candy products, on the other hand, were tasty. Frankel, a reformed sugar-free-candy addict, told me that the trick is that they are made with real sugar, in low amounts. Frankel took his point. But she rejected his suggestion that the prospective drink be sold in sixteen-ounce cans. One day this spring, Frankel had a meeting in the Manhattan offices of a nutritional-supplement company called Corr-Jensen, to discuss her line of Skinnygirl protein supplements: bars and a shake. The office walls were lined with containers of protein powder.
They talked about trends in snacking, like the current interest in gluten-free options. A pile of Skinnygirl protein bars was on the table. The production company was interested in casting the outspoken Frankel on its new Housewives series for Bravo. At first, the rarely camera-shy Frankel was hesitant about jumping on board, saying no for two months before finally agreeing to join the cast.
After more consideration, Frankel decided that television might provide an enormous opportunity to grow her business at a national level. And Bravo had no qualms about her plugging her own products on the show. When I went on the show, no one was going on for business, no one had done anything. The network was seeking to find fresh personalities for its audience instead of dipping into the already existing reality pool.
The goal for herself and the company she set forth to create was simple: creating practical solutions for women. So I created lazy lingerie. You wear it under a blazer or sweater during the day, but when you pull it off, you have on lingerie. It solves a problem. From the beginning, Frankel had little intention of opening her life to the cameras in return for a single paycheck from the network while the show lapped up precious ad dollars.
Nine months later, she released a second book, The Skinnygirl Dish. Today, the two have sold more then , copies worldwide. The idea for her low-cal mixed drink evolved organically, she says. A lover of margaritas, Frankel was looking for an alternative to the high-calorie options available. She developed the concept for Skinnygirl margarita mix and began taking the idea to distributors.
But peddling her low-cal mix in the male-dominated liquor community proved futile.
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