It had been a New York minute since Bethenny Frankel set foot in Manhattan, and maybe that is why she was dressed only in shades of black (Alaïa dress, ebony sunglasses, obsidian crocodile Birkin bag, onyx blowout) and gold (at her neck, wrists, and the temples of her eyes) and flesh (Physicians Formula Butter Glow mixed with Beautyblender Bounce Liquid Whip Long Wear foundation).
Seated poolside on the roof of Soho House, a skyscape unfolding behind her like the backdrop of an executive headshot, she did look, I have to be honest and say, the richest I have ever seen anybody look in real life.
It had been well over a decade since Frankel’s debut on The Real Housewives of New York City, and just over a decade since her invention, the Skinnygirl margarita, and the liquor company it begot, was sold to Beam and made her a hundred-millionaire.
Still, she hasn’t changed much. Critics need not note any discrepancies between Frankel’s ever popular TikTok content, which might feature her taking a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van to a Dollar Tree, and her personal aesthetic, which could be described as Boss with diamond-studded dollar signs instead of S’s. “Do I seem like I’m trying to make myself look poor?” she asked, gesturing vaguely at her outfit, which, accessories included, could have easily been worth $100,000. “The horse has left the barn.” She took a sip of a frothy coffee drink.
It has been about four years since Frankel left The Real Housewives of New York City, and so it has been about four years since Frankel took the task of documenting her life into her own hands, through social media. Her YouTube channel involves a baseline level of production—at the very least, an editor—but the TikTok is all Frankel, no filter.
Most of her posts are filmed at one of two manses in Connecticut and Bridgehampton, and everything else is filmed either on vacation or at a strip mall. She is prolific on the platform. On Mother’s Day alone, she posted three videos discussing a range of topics, all filmed from bed. Her reviews of beauty products, which make a perfect display of her trademark candor, have a particular resonance to millions of viewers, and to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.
Frankel can’t remember when she became aware of TikTok, other than around the time of “Old Town Road”—probably early 2019—but a social-media manager had quickly assured her that the app was mostly for 8- to 13-year-olds. She has historically been an early adopter of nascent social-media platforms. Her handle on Twitter is still @Bethenny, the only mononymous handle in the Housewives universe besides @Andy.
She launched her TikTok in the early days of the pandemic, but her following took a few years to truly bloom, and it did so at the same time that she began posting unfiltered reviews of consumer goods. In April 2022, she began what would be a recurring series of testing functionally similar makeup products at wildly different price points. Which is better: the prestige powder or the drugstore dupe? (Not to spoil it, but drugstore usually wins.)
If there is a content strategy, it seemingly operates by turning any retail store or consumer good into an object of “no bullshit” critique. Frankel is constantly trying new things. When she isn’t, she’s shopping for new things—her Sprinter van prowls the outlet malls and discount chains of New England, hauls are amassed, and those hauls are dissected on-camera. Her audience loves it. And she really and truly loves that they love it.
She remembered making a joke to her fiancé, the film producer Paul Bernon, after a few of her beauty reviews had gone viral. “I go, ‘I think I’m a beauty influencer.’ And he was laughing at me. I was acting like something that is inconsequential compared to what I have in my own career was such a big deal. It was, to me.” She did not notice the transformation until it was already complete.
Her beauty influence now constitutes a small but lucrative corner of the multi-million-dollar Bethenny Frankel–plex, which includes, but could not possibly be limited to, the Skinnygirl brand of snacks and supplements, an apparel line, a collection of rosés, two podcasts, and one philanthropic organization.
A social-media campaign, like the one she did with the makeup brand Laura Geller, could come with a six-figure fee. Frankel has done one-off TikTok posts with brands including Neutrogena and CoverGirl, or a brand may ask Frankel if they can syndicate an unpaid (but positive) video, and she is happy to sell them the opportunity.
She estimates that her sporadic paid content on the platform alone accounts for about 10 percent of her overall income, but that doesn’t include the other deals—ads, speaking engagements, spikes in Skinnygirl salad-dressing sales—made possible by her constant exposure. “I’m ironically private,” she told me. “If it weren’t for the businesses, I would not be a person that was sharing anything.”
And yet Frankel excels at putting her name in other people’s mouths. The day after we met, she was name-dropped on And Just Like That…, in a context that suggested she is engaged in some ongoing feud with TV’s Carrie Bradshaw. (The same day, on TikTok, she posted her review of Baby Foot, as well as her thoughts on the missing Titan submersible.)
What I learned from Bethenny Frankel’s TikTok is that there are many things we can all learn from Bethenny Frankel’s TikTok. There are endless things, perhaps, unless the app becomes illegal in the near future, or unless Frankel runs out of beauty products to discuss. The former is unlikely, unless you live in Montana; the latter is a matter of endless supply and ravenous demand.
For Rapid Edification: Everything Important Gleaned From Bethenny Frankel’s TikTok
1.
Images in the TikTok mirror are not always as they appear. It is now more than common practice for beauty influencers to filter their faces toward digital perfection, even before they apply any product. Used filters are usually labeled, though it’s possible to use a third-party app to circumvent this disclosure. The 2023 influencer breakout Alix Earle is rumored to regularly use the blue-eyes filter. These are real people, but these are often not real faces.
2.
TikTok is a social-media app that is also a 24-hour handheld shopping network, and the sooner you metabolize that information, the less irrationally angry you’ll start getting at influencers.
3.
You can have a full TikTok filming setup—ring light, tripod, the works—for your own vanity, but your views won’t skyrocket and your followers won’t care.
4.
If you ever encounter a bear, the Roaring Fork Valley Bear Coalition recommends you “speak to the bear in a calm and assertive voice,” slowly back away, and make sure the bear has an escape route.
5.
For your convenience, here are a few things Frankel has decided that you do not need to own:
- The G.E. Profile Opal countertop ice-maker
- Mascaras that are made with “lash” “boosting” “skin care”
- Undereye primer. Hydrating eye cream or Aquaphor works perfectly for this purpose.
- Rimowa luggage
- Most of the showcase designer bags at T.J. Maxx—they just aren’t good deals.
- Matcha-enhanced cookie dough
Also:
6.
The Essence Sun Club bronzer quad is better than Gucci Éclat Soleil.
7.
Neutrogena Hydroboost Foundation is better than Armani Luminous Silk.
8.
Kewpie mayonnaise is better, lighter, and more delicious than Hellmann’s.
9.
Lancôme Teint Idole is better than nothing when it comes to undereye concealer.
10.
The Rainbow Shops in Roslindale, Massachusetts has really soft pajamas in adorable prints, and they’re only $11.99.
11.
If you’re looking for a secondhand Hermès bag, shop at a resale store and not online. You’re likelier to get a better price and a prized authentication.
12.
Her earliest Housewives salaries: Frankel got $7,250 for season 1, about $50,000 for season 2, and about $125,000 for season 3.
13.
The one thing Frankel disputed in her original Housewives contract was a clause that allowed Bravo a cut of anything else she made, which would have, in theory, entitled the network to a percentage of the hundred-million-dollar sale of her cocktail business to Beam. Now, for other Housewives, the clause is a non-negotiable. It’s called The Bethenny Clause.
14.
Yes, the name Skinnygirl is probably not the most body-positive choice. It has aged into a different cultural climate than the one it was born into—just as fatphobic as ever, to be frank, yet highly anxious about seeming fatphobic, the fat emperor has no clothes. Still, Frankel sticks by it because, to be Frankel, it sells. “My whole brand is about allowing and indulging. Never dieting. The name Skinnygirl was about low-calorie dressings and cocktails, like a solution to a problem … and that frankly was about allowing. You’re allowing yourself to have a margarita. You don’t have to deprive yourself of that margarita because it has 10,000 grams of sugar. That’s where Skinnygirl comes from. And that’s why I chose to make swimwear under [the brand name Bethenny], not Skinnygirl.”
15.
Cottage cheese is delicious with caviar.
16.
Bethenny met Kyle Richards and Kathy Hilton when she was a hostess at La Scala, and went on to briefly nanny for the young Paris and Nicky Hilton. Frankel would take Nicky to buy fast fashion and Paris to buy ferrets.
17.
If you are in St. Barths and looking to collect sea glass, there’s a beach called Shellona littered with the stuff.
18.
In a pinch, Dial Antibacterial Hand Soap makes for a pretty good—if almost grotesquely tasteless—foaming face wash.
19.
If you are somebody who purchases gift wrap more than once per year, you will save a small fortune by doing so exclusively at the Dollar Tree.
20.
The Amazing Savings in Scarsdale “kicks the Dollar Store’s fucking ass,” at least in terms of the twisty turban selection.
21.
The Dollar Tree is a true dollar store, filled with bargains that mostly cost one dollar. Dollar General is generally a dollar but usually more than one. You’ve been warned.
22.
During her pre-Skinnygirl career, Frankel was once rumored to be dating The Situation (from Jersey Shore) and Alex Rodriguez (from the MLB), and denied both to the press. A-Rod admired her honesty, and called her to thank her. Then the two met up in Aspen for a friendly 48 hours, “just talking,” and discussing “confidential stories from his past” and her idea for Skinnygirl. Then she met him, his friends, and family at his house in Miami. She came dressed for a night out, but left because he took too long putting his kids to bed. It’s all love now.
23.
Did you know the H in Preparation H stands for hemorrhoid? Not me, and neither did Frankel!
24.
If you have a highlighter that beams too much, try layering it beneath your foundation for a more diffused glow.
25.
Those little plastic seals they include with jars of eye cream or moisturizer? Keep them, even though they’re annoying—they do, in fact, make the product last longer.
26.
Vintage 329 in New Orleans has some of the best vintage Chanel jewelry in the world.
27.
In late 2022, Frankel filed an image and likeness misuse complaint against TikTok in the Southern District of New York, after a doctored video of her promoting a counterfeit designer cardigan went viral. She hopes to address what she claims to be “a widespread issue affecting creators of all sizes across the space.” The case is stalled amid a larger legal drama about TikTok and national security, but Frankel looks forward to pursuing the issue as fast as judiciously possible.
28.
“I’ve been saying it and I’ll say it again: She’s a whore. There’s nowhere she won’t go. This bitch doesn’t stop. She’s a harder worker than anyone.” (Regarding Hello Kitty.)
29.
When a sofa has a long, flat armrest, it’s called a “track arm.” (As for the names of the others, we’ll never know.)
30.
Your Beautyblender works perfectly fine if you put a square of tissue over it when you blend, and it won’t get as dirty as quickly.
31.
If the marriage lasts two years, the divorce could take ten.
32.
Unless you are interested in exchanging between one and two hundred dollars for a true piece of useless plastic garbage, you can rest easy knowing that the Icee Company’s Icee-brand home slushie machine is not for you, and that Bethenny Frankel told you so. She doesn’t always tell the truth, but she never lies.
Brennan Kilbane is a New York–based writer. He is originally from Cleveland, and his interviews and essays have appeared in GQ, New York magazine, and Allure, where he was recently on staff as a features writer
