Bethenny Frankel Has Taken Up Her Sword in the Cancel Culture Wars
LatestBethenny Frankel wants everyone to know she’s real, and in a new Vanity Fair profile, she says it repeatedly. “How about we do real?” The sentiment, she says, defined her upcoming HBO Max Apprentice-esque business competion, The Big Shot With Bethenny. “You’ll see it’s extremely real. It couldn’t be more real.”
Get the memo? This lady is very real.
It’s a whole lot of Bethenny Frankel in VF’s gargantuan interview with the mogul, appropriately titled, “Bethenny Frankel Would ‘Rather Be Canceled Than Muzzled.’” The headline gives most of what happens next away. Here’s the full quote:
Listen, I’d rather be canceled than muzzled. There are so many watered-down, filtered versions of people running around the entertainment industry. It’s the absolute majority. I am absolutely the exception, no question. But when you do something that is risky, or that you might regret, or that risks “cancellation nation,” you think about what it takes to survive, and what it takes to thrive, and where the envelope is, and if you can push it.
She adds that her decision to do a podcast was “a risky thing for a person like me,” because “I’m just going to say what I think. So I made a conscious, calculated decision—something could go sideways, for sure.” Apparently, the play worked, because now she has a new show on HBO Max, The Big Shot With Bethenny, in which she will find someone to “run this goddamn circus,” or in non-reality television star speak, her business empire.
Funny, though, because I can’t imagine what is riskier about a podcast than multiple stints on The Real Housewives of New York, during which she screamed, screamed some more, tore her friendships apart, and sold a lot of tequila.
Bethenny also speaks bluntly about the businesspeople she admires. To her, “the biggest thing is that they have to have built a brand and done it in a nontraditional way.” Here’s the hellish list, which caused me to break out in hives and call my therapist crying. “Jamie Siminoff, who created the Ring and sold it to Amazon for a billion dollars. Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Handler, [Barstool Sports creator] Dave Portnoy, Mark Cuban, Ryan Murphy.” Apparently, these goons and goblins will also guest-star on The Big Shot, which seems bad, but most likely very good for ol’ Beth.
Speaking of the union-busting, misogynistic, hate-filled pig monster known as Dave Portnoy, Bethenny seems to admire him quite a bit. Here’s the rest of what she has to say about that demon king from the darkest blood pits of hell:
If it’s not full shtick, I think Dave Portnoy is doing things his own way and pissing off people. He’s not really afraid. It’s part of his brand to piss off people. The difference between Dave Portnoy and me, besides everything, is…he has a brand, but he [isn’t partnered with a] wholesome company brand like Conagra. So I can’t go totally rogue and do everything that I want to do. But I’ve made people mad.
The full quotes gets even weirder:
I’ve had all the Karens mad at me for helping 100 small-owned Black businesses. To them I was a racist. I’ve had the same group pissed off because I said something about Donald Trump. But then I had another group pissed off at me for posting a Hillary Clinton photo. I had Dana White and I had Hillary Clinton on the podcast. It’s not about politics. It’s about opinions and your own route to success.
The more I think about a collaborative environment in which Dana White, Hilary Clinton, Bethenny Frankel, a bunch of Karens, and Dave Portnoy all mill about together freely, the more the sun darkens and the sky fills with locusts and the rivers run green and black with acid and all manners of disease. I think that’s enough quotes from ol’ Beth for now. I need to crawl back into bed and never read the internet ever again.