Bethenny Talks Motherhood, Inlaws, Her Book

It didn't take long for Bethenny Frankel to become the fan favorite on Bravo's "Real Housewives of New York City."

The reality star, natural foods chef and best-selling author soon scored her own spin-off, "Bethenny Getting Married?" -- in which she wed love Jason Hoppy and delivered their daughter, Bryn -- and currently stars in "Bethenny Ever After."

In her latest book, "A Place of Yes," Frankel, 40, lists 10 rules "for getting everything you want out of life."

ParentDish recently spoke with Frankel about her latest book, motherhood and dealing with her inlaws. An edited version of the interview follows.

ParentDish: What does the title "A Place of Yes" mean?

Bethenny Frankel: It does not mean a way to the power of positive thinking. It means a way to get there. You don't have to want what I want. It's about how to plow through and get there. It's how I got to where I am from coming from a place of yes. So many people told me no and how it couldn't happen. I kind of just knew in my gut that I could make things happen.

PD: There are 10 rules in the book. What do you think is the most important one?

BF: I would say maybe all roads lead to Rome, because people worry about the right job and it has to be the perfect situation. And all roads lead to Rome is kind of about getting on the road; it doesn't matter if you get derailed or have to stop, as long as you are moving forward, you can get to your destination one way or another.

PD: You don't speak to Jill from "Real Housewives" at all anymore, right?

BF: No, we don't speak at all. Listen, I have boyfriends that I lived with that I broke up with that I don't speak to, you know. We met briefly before the show, but ultimately our friendship began and ended on reality TV. The way it went down was extremely difficult because my father passed away, I was in a new relationship and being pregnant. The way it went down was really not ideal.

PD: How has motherhood changed you?

BF: My priorities totally changed. I wake up in the morning and the minute I hear her I want to run to her. If I go to L.A. for work, I'll take a red-eye and not stay overnight so I can come back and see her. I just want to be with her every single minute. I've been listening to every woman who says it flies by, and it really does. That will be problematic for me; I can already see that being my issue. I'm going to have a really hard time letting go.

PD: You also write that women should have sex with their husbands even when they're not in the mood.

BF: You just don't want to be the girl five years in, always saying no and in a raggedy robe. You want to try and come from a place of yes.

PD: So, do the producers want you to do goofy things on your show?

BF: Not on my show. That's why Max got fired (recently), to be perfectly honest. I didn't want someone who wanted to be funny and come up with quips. It actually really annoyed me. In reality, he'd be two hours late and he'd want to take a cab instead of the subway and I'm big on work ethic. You think this is a TV show -- this is my life. I get in wicked fights with my producers. There will not be a word out of place. If it's not something I said or did, it will not be on the show or I'll never do the show again. I have a serious foot down mantra.

PD: I hope you're not offended, but I'm on Team Jason regarding issues with his parents. Your daughter is so lucky to have grandparents who adore her.

BF: I'm not offended. I do understand and I love them and they're wonderful. I don't need them to be here every two weeks staying over and vice versa. It's a 50/50 split as to what people think. Guilt shouldn't be a reason for doing things. I want my family and I have to have quality time, too. We need to have our own life. We need to have our own moments together and then share them with other people. I totally get where you're coming from, but it's a balance. Jason and his parents are very talkative and, on a TV show, that's really nice for an hour, but when you've been together for three days in a row you can imagine. That's fine if it's occasional, every week it's too much.

Credit: Parent Dish (Nicki Gostin )

Jill Zarin: RHONY 'Enjoyable' Without Bethenny

Jill Zarin's friendship with Bethenny Frankel went down in flames on the last season of Real Housewives of New York.

What's the group dynamic nowadays -- with newcomer Cindy Barshop in and Frankel out?

The sixth season (premiering April 7) is "my favorite," Zarin told Us Magazine during a visit to the NYC headquarters with her sister, radio personality Lisa Wexler.

"Living through it was the most enjoyable season," Zarin. (Frankel now stars in her own Bravo series, Bethenny Ever After; waxing salon entrepreneur Barshop joins show vets Zarin, Sonja Morgan, Luann de Lesseps, Kelly Bensimon, Ramona Singer and Alex McCord.)

"I don't think Bethenny ever really fit into the group," Zarin tells Us. "She's found herself on her own show -- her own island. She self-admittedly doesn't like people [besides her husband Jason Hoppy and daughter Bryn, 10 months.]."

Credit: Us Magazine

Bethenny Frankel: "A Place Of Yes" Book Signing

Bethenny Frankel signs copies of "A Place Of Yes: 10 Rules For Getting Everything You Want Out Of Life" at Barnes & Noble Union Square on March 22, 2011 in New York, New York.

Credit: Wire Image

Bethenny Frankel Visits Good Morning America

Bethenny Frankel seemed to be in a great mood as she leaves the "Good Morning America" studios in New York City. The reality star was seen wearing a long grey, three quarter length sleeve sweater over a maroon dress.

Credit: Zimbio

Photos by PacificCoastNews.com

Bethenny Sells Skinnygirl Cocktail Business

Bethenny Frankel, reality star turned businesswoman, has successfully taken her entrepreneurship and sold it to a major organization. Skinnygirl, a Frankel's brand of low calorie cocktails, was acquired in a purchase made by Fortune Brands Incorporated.

Despite selling the company, Bethenny Frankel will remain on hand for the organization to help with design, collaboration and marketing efforts.

Launched in 2009, Skinnygirl was created by Bethenny Frankel and David Kanbar.

Financial details of the acquisition were not immediately disclosed.

Credit: Online Journal

Kelly Bensimon Talks Bethenny & Cindy Barshop

Kelly Bensimon didn't exactly miss Bethenny Frankel while filming the new season of the Real Housewives of New York City.

You'd think it was because Bensimon was so over all their catfighting, but no...

"I only filmed with her a couple of times," Bensimon insisted to me earlier today. "I don't know her at all. I met her a couple of times. We create awesome television. But I wish her well. I don't know what else there is to say because I don't know her enough to say anything."

Frankel's replacement, hair removal queen Cindy Barshop, is a completely different story.

"Cindy's a rock star," Kelly gushed. "She really put the Housewives brand out of balance. She used to work at IBM. She's got 10 Completely Bare [hair removal spas] in New York alone. She's in her forties. She's got two unbelievable babies. She has an unbelievable family. She has set the bar so high."

Guess Bensimon really likes her.

"Who doesn't like a girl's girl who has it all, works her butt off and wears Martin Margiela?" she said. "She's hot, she's cool and she's easygoing."

Credit: E! Online (Marc Malkin)

Bethenny Frankel: Not Happy With Co-Workers

Bethenny Frankel has become very good at marketing herself. However, this kind of around-the-clock self-promotion can lead to problems, as revealed on Bethenny Ever After (Mon., 10PM ET on Bravo).

She sat down with husband Jason Hoppy to talk about why her business isn't producing product as quickly as she'd hoped and wasn't at all happy with what she was hearing.

"Everyone's freaking out because they can't get the product," she said. "And we're not producing it fast enough."

Jason explained to her that there wasn't sufficient demand during the early stages of production, and when demand peaked, they couldn't keep up.

Bethenny believed the demand would come all along, as she reminded him. "I told everyone this would happen," she reminded him. "Why can't everybody produce as fast as I can market?"

Credit: TV Squad ()

Bethenny Frankel Touches Down In Los Angeles

Bethenny Frankel, star of Bethenny Ever After, was spotted arriving to LAX Airport in Los Angeles looking happy to be there!

Credit: Zimbio

Photos by Photo Agency

Ramona Singer Disses Bethenny’s Actions

Although it seemed like Real Housewives of New York City star Ramona Singer was friends with Bethenny Frankel, she is now dissing her for her actions on her own reality TV show.

Singer admits that she is impressed with Frankel’s ability to handle all she is doing right now, but she doesn’t agree with her treatment of some others, states The Miami Herald.

“How could she not embrace her child’s grandparents?” Singer said about Frankel having a hard time spending a lot of time with her in-laws, “That was shocking to me.”

Credit: Hollywood News (Molly Sullivan)

Bethenny Frankel Doesn't Want To Talk RHONY

Bethenny Frankel isn’t the woman she was when America was introduced to her on the Real Housewives of New York three years ago. Back then, she was 37, single, always cracking wise about her cast-mates’ quirks and working as a chef. Now starring in Season 2 of her own show, Frankel is married with a baby and the kingpin of her SkinnyGirl brand.

Since she became a star and began touring the country giving talks, Frankel has been sought out as a sort of famous best girlfriend that fans will ask about anything.

“Everything from ‘I’m trying to find my way in college and I’m not sure what path I should take’ to ‘I’m single and 30 and my friends are pressuring me, but you’re an inspiration because I feel like I don’t have to do anything on any timeline.’ It’s every range of every women’s question and issue,” Frankel says.

On this season of Bethenny Ever After, we can expect to see her struggling to get the right work-life balance and adjusting to her new in-laws.

As for her past with the Real Housewives, we were curious if Frankel thought any of the other ladies in the franchise had the potential to do what she has accomplished.

“I’d rather talk about me than the other Housewives if that’s OK,” she suddenly snipped. “Thank you.”

Credit: Metro (HEIDI PATALANO)

Bethenny Frankel Talks Shapewear Line

She’s always looking for ways to expand her kingdom, and Bethenny Frankel has just introduced her new project, called shapeware.

The new line will offer several different categories- The Skinny, Secret Service, Glamouflage, and Show, Don’t Tell.

She explained, “I wear shapers once in a while, going on the red carpet, to smooth things out. I live in a tank top.…The line ranges from tank tops in black or beige to my signature color, red, which is a confidence color, and a little daring, but not white because it can make anyone look bigger…and what I call lazy lingerie — a black lace top that can be worn under a blazer that you can take off and your husband says ‘You’re sexy’ in a lacy top…and a sexy apron with a bra, a fun item with a little skirt you might wear for Valentine’s Day to wake up in and fix your husband breakfast in.”

As for Bethenny’s favorite pieces of the collection, she shared, “A playful item [control briefs] with a pad to make your butt look better.…I was holding my butt out so my husband could notice, and he said, ‘Oh, you look juicy’…and The Skinny, a pencil skirt that goes all the way up under your boobs to smooth all your lines. My favorites are the lace lingerie-looking bodysuit or camisole by Glamouflage.…I like items that look like comfortable underwear but look sexy like from Show, Don’t Tell that look like something sexy that Marilyn Monroe or Betty Boop would wear.”

Credit: Celebrity Gossip

Jill Zarin Doubts Her Friendship With Bethenny

Jill Zarin is having serious doubts her long-defunct friendship with former Real Housewives of New York City co-star Bethenny Frankel was ever real and tells Rob Shuter it was just a "TV romance" that went bad. Real bad.

"The truth is, I don't even remember being friends with her anymore," Jill tells him on his HDNet show. "You know, when I see her picture and when I see her on TV, I don't even remember our relationship. Which kinda says something."

The pair's friendship went down in flames during the third season of the hit show, with numerous on-air blowups leading to a full scale feud between the two. It probably didn't help that Jill accidentally broke the news of the birth of Bethenny's baby last year on Twitter.

But after many attempts to patch things up, it's pretty clear things are kaput for good for these ex-BFF's and Jill tells me she's fine with it because they didn't exactly have long history. "People thought we came into the show with that romance," she said. "We didn't. We fell in love on TV and we got a divorce on TV."

Now a year later, she's not even sure she and the Bethenny Ever After star were chums to begin with! "It was real! Well, I thought the friendship was real. Clearly, it was not."

Credit: Pop Eater (Rob Shuter)

Bethenny Frankel Teams Up With Hanes

Bethenny Ever After star Bethenny Frankel and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s resident interior designer Michael Moloney teamed up with Hanes for the Keep, Toss and Donate event held on Tuesday, March 1st, 2011 in New York City, New York.

Credit: Accidental Sexiness (Rosy)

Photos by Wire Image

Bethenny Frankel Talks Marriage, Reality Show

Last night marked the second season premiere of Bethenny Frankel's spinoff Bethenny Ever After, so to promote the big event Bethenny participated in a media call to address baby Bryn, the Real Housewives marriage curse, why she decided to come back for Season 2 and, of course, Jill Zarin.

What was behind your decision to keep doing the show? One would imagine it gets increasingly more difficult to have a camera crew following you around your home as you add a family and more people to your immediate lives.

Bethenny: Well, it gets more difficult and, without getting into the details of my relationship with Bravo, I have a commitment. It's not like you get to be like, I want to do one season and then, you've spent all this money on advertising and crew and all of that and we're done. [But] will I be doing this forever? No.

You've mentioned how you feel the obligation to allow the cameras to film your natural daily life. But is there anything that you and Jason have drawn the line at?

Bethenny: You know, it's not that I want them to be in here every time I go to the bathroom. It's that if he and I in general have had the same argument six times over about marriage or money or life or in-laws or something, at some point I want to let the cameras catch that because I just hate when you watch these shows and someone's, like, broken up with their boyfriend and you see them laying there in full makeup pretending that they're sad. I just want it to be real and if we're going to do this at all and we're going to portray our relationship I want people to get the whole picture.

As you know, a lot of Real Housewives marriages have broken up and you've seen it on the show. Was there at all a concern over kind of that Housewives curse?

Bethenny: I mean listen, the Housewives could ruin a lot of things. I'm very happy that I'm not on the Housewives anymore because it's just a whole different place. But my show, I'm an executive producer. I'm involved in decisions -- nothing gets shot if I don't know it's getting shot. And if Jason and I became unhappy as a result of the show or there were problems we wouldn't do it.

Jason was on a season of Real Housewives of New York. Were there problems then?

Bethenny: Listen, my boyfriend first season did not want to be on the show, did not think it was a good idea, had no interest in it. Jason and I could never have stayed on the Housewives together. He's like 'I don't like these women. I don't like what this represents. It's nonsense and it's just catty and it's' -- you know, he hated it.

Were there any moments shooting this season where you were thinking, I wish the cameras weren't here? Like when Bryn's changing or crying?

Bethenny: No, because then it wouldn't be real and it wouldn't be a good show. No, not at all. Especially with her, no, she's just a nice, easy kid. But no, it's just been great. I don't regret anything because could you imagine if I just kept out everything that was embarrassing or my breakdown on my birthday or me uncomfortable with Jason's parents or whatever, then it'd be a terrible show.

As far as your relationships with the other Housewives, has Jill Zarin met Bryn?

Bethenny: No, Jill has not met Bryn, no. That's not even a hard one, that's an easy one.

Credit: Televsion Without Pity (Mindy Monez)

Bethenny Frankel, 40: I Might Have Another Baby

Will Bethenny Frankel's little girl Bryn, 10 months, get a little brother or sister?

It could happen, the Bravo star tells Us Magazine in an exclusive interview.

"I'm 40 years old," Frankel points out. "It's something we have to talk about now."

Her husband, Jason Hoppy, "really wants to have another child," she adds. "The baby stage is so beautiful and addictive."

The recent cover star of Us Weekly also opens up about her "maddening" former obsession with dieting -- and how she's finally developed a healthier attitude about food and her self-image.

Is the Bethenny Ever After star still a Real Housewives watcher? Not so much, she tells Us. The franchise is "women being rewarded for bad behavior," she observes.

Credit: Us Magazine

Bethenny Frankel: Miami Bikini Babe

Closing out the weekend with a romp around the beach, Bethenny Frankel proudly flaunted her bikini body in Miami Beach, Florida on Sunday (February 27).

The reality TV star was joined by husband, Jason Hoppy, as the twosome took a loved-up stroll along the sandy shoreline in the sunshine state.

Credit: Celebrity Gossip

Photos by INF Daily

Countess: Bethenny Not Missed on 'Housewives'

Real Housewives of New York City star Countess LuAnn de Lesseps doesn't miss having Bethenny Frankel around the Bravo hit anymore, and she reveals to Pop Eater's Rob Shuter the real reason behind the delay in the new season.

"To tell you the truth, no!" she told Shuter on my HDNet show when asked if she misses Bethenny. "She's doing her own thing now, so I wish her luck. Very happy for her. And you know, we have a new housewife now, so on to new and different things."

The countess tells him there is no truth to reports that the upcoming season of RHONY was postponed because it is boring, rather she explained that Bravo needed extra time to edit it because its so full of excitement.

"Well, what's going on is that there is so much drama that they needed more time to edit!"

LuAnn has been busy recording another song and music video, and as you know, she just made her prime-time acting debut in Law & Order SVU.

"It wasn't easy laying naked with just a sheet covering me in front of Mariska Hargitay," the countess tells him.

Credit: Pop Eater (Rob Shuter)

"Bethenny Ever After" Premiere Sneak Peak

Bethenny Frankel, Jason Hoppy and baby Bryn are back! Jump right on in to the crazy and stressful day-to-day as Bethenny tries to juggle her business, her baby, and her in-laws, proving to be a challenge right from the get-go.

As Bethenny and Jason head out of New York City for a visit to Jason's parents, the trip takes a quick turn for the worse when Bethenny decides she needs more boundaries between the families.

Will Bethenny be able to come to a fair agreement with the in-laws and keep the family peace or will parental drama ensue? Find out this Monday 2/28 at 10:00/9:00c on the premiere of Bravo's Bethenny Ever After.

Credit: Nicole Hering of 360 for Bravo TV

Bethenny Frankel & Baby Bryn Enjoy Miami

Spending time with her baby girl in the warm Miami sunshine, Bethenny Frankel enjoyed a romp around the beach earlier today (February 23).

The Bethenny Ever After star looked fit and fine in a blue bikini as she and a nanny made sure to keep little Bryn sheltered from the sun.

Credit: Celebrity Gossip

Photos by Fly Net

Bethenny Frankel & Family Spotted In Soho

Former Real Housewives of New York star Bethenny Frankel took a stroll with husband Jason Hoppy and their baby daughter Bryn (b. May 8, 2010) in SoHo on Febrauary 19, 2011.

Credit: Zimbio

Photos by Bauer Griffin