Bethenny Frankel is reflecting on her decade-long, tumultuous divorce from ex-husband Jason Hoppy. On the latest episode of her podcast, Just B Divorced, she name drops other celebrities who appear to have been through awful divorces, but insists that hers is “the worst divorce in history, short of physical abuse.” She also describes the inception of their relationship and the circumstances that she says, in retrospect, made her vulnerable to choosing a partner and relationship that wasn’t necessarily the best fit for her.
At its core, the episode is about how charm can often be a red flag. She shared some advice she got once from a life coach, who told her that being ‘charming’ is a characteristic typically only ascribed to men, not women. And that in little doses, sure, charm can be great, but in large doses, where ‘charm’ defines someone’s personality, it’s more often than not a toxic trait. (Name and number of the life coach please? Asking for a friend.)
Real Housewives fans can attest to the fact that everything about Jason screamed charming. He came from a small town. He was from a good family. His parents were adorable. He wanted kids. The audience really got a front row seat to all of that. But behind the scenes, Bethenny felt, very early on, that everything about her relationship was wrong, and only pressed on for two reasons. The first was that she convinced herself that she “should” want this, because on paper, he was everything women are told makes a ‘good man’. But secondly, because being on the show added a level of pressure she hadn’t known how to cope with at the time.
The night she and Jason met, she had been out party-hopping with friends of Nene Leakes. He was at an event with another woman when the pair struck up a conversation, and he ended up hitching a ride home with Bethenny. But later she learned he had been dishonest about why he took the ride.
“He lied and said his car was downtown, but he left his car [at the venue] and said he’d take a ride from me and my driver,” she explained. “It could either be endearing that he wanted to hang out with me or a lie about him really wanting to hang out with me because he knew who I was.”
The second red flag came when he revealed that he had a past relationship with another reality star that his parents didn’t approve of. The reason it was a red flag for her was because there weren’t nearly as many reality shows back then as there are now. So the fact that she was the second reality TV star he’d encountered in a romantic sense was off-putting for her. But still, she persisted.
Yet another red flag was how Jason discussed Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson’s divorce. Jason had mentioned to her that he hoped Nick took Jessica for everything she had, considering she had a higher net worth and more fame than he did at the time. It struck Bethenny as odd that he had that outlook. But it all came to make sense as money became a bigger issue in their relationship and he began to reveal his true colours.
“When a woman makes a lot more money than a man, it’s going to lead to problems in 95% of the cases…somewhere down the line, it’s going to feel a certain way to that man,” she said.
Before tying the knot, Bethenny said she wasn’t interested in a prenup. Despite being on the verge of making some huge moves with her cocktail brand, she didn’t think she had enough money to justify asking him to sign one. And it was only at the advice of her legal team that she got one. She says looking back, it was a “sh-tty” prenup and didn’t account for everything that would come up in the divorce, which is kind of the point of prenups. But it didn’t matter because she believed he was a kind-hearted small town boy who would never go after her money. Famous last words, as she calls it.
Within the first few months of their relationship, Jason began expressing concerns about her age and what it meant for his desire to have kids, something she felt indifferent about. She was only in her mid-30s, but, you know, any pregnancy after the age of 35 is medically considered geriatric. He started urging her to “really think” about getting pregnant soon, which she did. Shortly after getting pregnant, the couple got married in a televised wedding.
“In so many stages as women we think we’re supposed to be finished with the journey and know what stage we’re supposed to be at. We put these timelines and these clocks on ourselves and it makes us make bad decisions,” she explained.
She ended the episode by citing the divorces of several famous women who all found themselves in very compromising situations as it pertained to their divorces, reminding women to view marriage as the legally binding business contract that it is, and to not to be blinded by love. But more importantly, to trust their gut.
“If you don’t know that it’s right, get the f-ck out. If you don’t know that it’s right, it’s wrong. It doesn’t matter if you’re about to get married,” she said.
Bethenny’s advice probably hits home for a lot of women who have had to endure the misfortune of getting a divorce. Despite the freedom divorce can lead to, it can often be a long, exhausting, and very expensive process, hence her recently describing it as ‘more torturous than death’, saying that she didn’t think she was going to survive it.
While I’ve written extensively about how much I admire the post-divorce narratives from women like Tia Mowry, Kristin Cavallari and Emily Ratajkowski, all women who divorced much earlier than Bethenny did, her reflection is especially interesting. Partially because she’s older and has boat loads more money than each of those women, but also because she obtained that wealth at a later stage in life than them. She didn’t come from money, and that makes her a bit more relatable.
Kristin and EmRata came into money earlier. Bethenny, on the other hand, has recalled being in a state of financial struggle up until her late 30s, owing $20,000 in credit card debt and not making nearly as much as her co-stars on the show in her first season.
But as time went on, she proved herself to be very business savvy, selling her business for $100 million in 2011, the year after she and Jason married. And because of her sh-tty prenup that didn’t ascribe the value he’d be entitled to should they divorce, she had to hire a forensic financial analyst to determine the true valuation of her company at the time of their split, rather than at the time of their prenup.
Having a front row seat to not only the rise and fall of her relationship with Jason, but the rise of her success, has really echoed and affirmed the experiences so many other women have had, both famous and non-famous. She echoed a lot of what Cardi B said while she was separating from Offset. Cardi B said he swooped in when she was at a career high, and that had she stayed the course with her career instead of putting it on the back burner to marry him and start a family, she might’ve been further ahead now, and that’s saying a lot because to most people, it doesn’t seem like she skipped a beat.
It's not an easy thing to get online and tell the world that you didn’t play your cards right, but Bethenny delivers her advice in a way that throws that narrative out the window. She even wrote a book called I Suck At Relationships So You Don’t Have To. I think that’s why women like Cardi B and Bethenny will always deliver the most effective and well sought after advice, because there is such an absence of ego and pride and a very clear sense of determination to help people learn from the mistakes they made. They came from humble beginnings, endured a lot of sh-t and still managed to become financially independent.
It can be hard to trust yourself after making such a colossal mistake. No matter how fast you bounce back, no matter how rich you become, you can’t rewrite history. But luckily for Bethenny, Cardi, and all the rest of us women that keep pressing on, we can write the future.
