A source close to Frankel told TooFab, "It's ridiculous that Kelly is making these false claims. Kelly has reached out to Bethenny many times asking for help and other things, so it's unfortunate that Kelly is now spreading negativity."
Kelly Bensimon is making some wild accusations about Bethenny Frankel, years after she parted ways with "The Real Housewives of New York."
Bensimon, 51, and Frankel, 48, never seemed to really "get" each other, but their animosity peaked during Season 3 when the cast took a trip to the Virgin Islands. The vacation became so chaotic, it's known to many as "Scary Island." (If you've ever seen memes of Bethenny shouting "GO TO SLEEP" at Kelly, you know what we're talking about.)
During a recent episode of the "Out in the Wild" podcast, Bensimon said the Skinnygirl mogul was pregnant during the trip and didn't "care" about the well-being of her unborn baby. The model also implied Bethenny faked all the scenes that showed her traveling to and from Los Angeles to visit her dying father.
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View Story"So we get to the boat, and I find out that we couldn't go to someplace else on another trip because [Bethenny] had been flying back and forth to L.A. to film with her father, but she actually never filmed with him," Bensimon said. "So she was flying back and forth so they could film her in the car, back and forth, when she's pregnant, and then she's going on this trip. And then she's having like serious issues with her [unborn] child, and she's on this trip, and she's flying back and forth, and I'm like, 'This is just not for me.'"
"All the bullshit of all that stuff, and I'm like, 'You guys want me to film with a woman who doesn't even care about her kid in her stomach?'" she continued. "She's like, 'Oh, whatever. If I have a miscarriage, whatever.' That's just not how I roll. She was having serious, serious, serious [pregnancy] complications -- serious complications -- and I'm just like, 'What is going on here? Why are we here? Why is she filming?'"
But a source close to Frankel told TooFab, "It's ridiculous that Kelly is making these false claims. Kelly has reached out to Bethenny many times asking for help and other things, so it's unfortunate that Kelly is now spreading negativity."
Bethenny's daughter, Bryn Hoppy, is now 9. At the time, her estranged father, Robert Frankel, was very sick. Season 3 documented the struggles Bethenny faced as she grappled with whether or not to forgive the man she hadn't spoken to for most of her adult life. She ultimately made the decision to go see him in Los Angeles and hash out some of her childhood traumas before his death in November 2010.
It's important to note that Scary Island, while highly entertaining, led many of the Housewives to believe Kelly was experiencing some sort of nervous breakdown. Kelly's insults toward Bethenny ("She's not a chef; she's a cook.") were soon replaced by claims that Bethenny was "trying to kill" her in her sleep. The next day, show producers accompanied Bensimon to the airport to head home, and while she claims she was joking about the murder claims, she says psychologists are still messaging her on Instagram saying, "You need help."
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View StoryDuring the "Out in the Wild" interview, Kelly also said Frankel used to make herself seem like a bigger deal than she was, going so far as to tell the masseuse in St. John that she was a "movie star."
"We fly there, I get to realize that Bethenny's not flying with us, so we get there, I'm in the hotel getting a massage, and they're like, 'Oh, did you know there's a really big movie star here?'" she recalled. "And I was like, 'Oh, really? Wow, who is it?' And they were like, 'Her name is Bethenny Frankel.' I'm like, 'Movie star?! Who?!' Like, oh my God, she's telling the masseuse that she's a movie star?"
Bensimon went on to claim that the series OG is "not a girl's girl" and that she always tried to executive produce the show.
"She would literally scream into the camera -- 'cause you have a camera there, and she'd be screaming into the camera, telling the camera, who's gonna be edited by L.A. -- 'This is not what this scene's supposed to be about!'" Kelly recalled. "And I'm just like, 'Who is this person? What is going on here? Just film, and then stop filming.' Like, you can't do that. It's not fair. And the thing that's not fair is it creates -- okay, she's trying to be the Kim K of 'Housewives,' fine -- it's not that. It's that she's creating such a disconnect between her and the characters, Bravo and us. She's creating this massive disconnect of all these people, so there's so much animosity and there's so much underlying tension that's so disingenuous and doesn't have to be there."
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View StoryWhile discussing the possibility that she'd return to the franchise, Kelly said Bravo wouldn't ask her because she'd "threaten" Bethenny's brand and fan base.
"I threaten her entire brand then," she said of her hypothetical return. "If I came on, and there was a moment where she was just like, 'Oh my God, I really like Kelly,' her entire brand would go to pop." Kelly said, noting that she and Bethenny's former enemy, Jill Zarin, are not similar because Kelly is "the ultimate, ultimate nemesis."
"Hypothetically, if I was on the show, and she was like, 'Kelly Bensimon is hot shit,' her entire brand would go to shit because everyone would be like, 'Wait, what? We've been spending 10 years hating Kelly Bensimon, and now you like her? What? Wait, the mean girl is the nice girl? What?'" she added.
But Kelly's return doesn't seem likely considering "Andy [Cohen] doesn't really like me that much -- 'cause I'm like the real deal."
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View Story"Maybe he doesn't like me because I was in Playboy, maybe he doesn't like me because I got the cover of Shape, maybe he doesn't like me because I got book deals," Kelly said. "I don't know what it is, honestly. And actually, when he wrote his book, I was like, 'You know what, I will write a really nice article for him that will be genuine, and we'll really celebrate what he's doing so that people can really see what he's really like.' And he wasn't even appreciative!"
"When I was first on the show, I interviewed him for my show even before I was even on there," she continued. "And he was like, 'Look, Kelly! I'm in Harper's Bazaar!' And I was like, 'That's great. That's great.' And it was weird. It was not like -- I don't know. He's always been very strange with me. Maybe he wants me to give him the attention or something? I don't know."
Kelly also said she would have been able to be "more philanthropic" as a Housewife had she been a "fan favorite."
TooFab has reached out to Andy Cohen and Bethenny Frankel for comment.
"The Real Housewives of New York" airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Bravo.
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