Bethenny Frankel on 'Bethenny Ever After' and Coming From a Place of Yes

It's not a stretch to say that Bethenny Frankel's life moves as fast as she talks.

Even though our interview earlier this week was via phone, it wasn't hard to paint the picture of what was going on on the other end: Bethenny, holding her ten-month old daughter Bryn, wandering around the office or living room in the small but well-appointed Tribeca condo seen in her Bravo show 'Bethenny Ever After,' conducting the interview in the vicinity of a speakerphone. Bryn was so close I could hear her cooing in the speaker near the end of the interview, so I said hi to her.

Life is non-stop for the former star of 'The Real Housewives of New York City.' In addition to the Bravo show, which is in its second season chronicling her marriage to Jason Hoppy and new motherhood, she just completed a deal to sell her Skinnygirl brand of low-calorie ready-made cocktails to Beam Global, maker of Jim Beam bourbon, among other products. And on Tuesday, her latest book, 'A Place of Yes: 10 Rules For Getting Everything You Want Out of Life,' hit store shelves.

Bethenny and I talked about the book, where she uses stories from her own life -- including her very complicated childhood -- to illustrate how she got to a "place of yes" and how her readers can get there, too. We also spoke about 'Ever After,' how she feels to finally be free of 'Housewives' and why she thinks 40 is too soon to write a memoir.

Joel Keller: Bethenny, how are you doing?
Bethenny Frankel: I'm holding my baby, so I hope you don't mind if you're on speaker.

You said at the beginning of your book that it's not a memoir, but a lot of it is memoir-like. Did you initially set out to write a memoir and it morphed into a self-help book?
No. I never wanted to write a memoir. I think it's too early to write a memoir. Every story has an application and a take away, and is only told to illustrate a point or a rule.

Why did you think it was too early to write a memoir?
Um... because I don't really know how the whole things ends up, you know? I don't know how many kids I'm gonna have, I don't know how easy or difficult marriage is going to be, I don't know if ultimately I'll be a career woman forever or if I'll hit the wall going 90 and just want to be with my baby. Barbara Walters is still on 'The View,' and she knows what the end result is. I really don't.

When you see people who are your age and have written a memoir, even if they focus in on a certain part of their life, do you think their life isn't over yet either?
Yeah, I kinda wouldn't read it. I'd be like, I don't need to hear about your whole life yet. Unless I'm gonna get something from it. Unless it's a business book about a big deal that happened and then I'm gonna figure out how that could happen, or how one experience molded their lives. Some people have written books about families with illnesses, and then you realize how they went through that, or something that applies to you. But just generally, someone writing about the stories of their life, I think is a little self-indulgent, unless it has a point.



So where did you come up with this method of coming from a place of yes?
You know, my whole entire life I've been told no, that something's not going to happen that I think is a good idea, whether it's that I went on the 'Housewives' and everyone told me, no you should not do that, it'll ruin your life and your career. That when I had my book 'Naturally Thin,' when I went to the agent that I had, and he told me, "This will never work, it has to be 'The 10 Weeks to Lose 20 Pounds,' or there has to be a specific promise." And I looked at him and I said, "I feel like I'm Lauren Hutton and you're asking me to take the space out of my teeth. This is the book, and this is what the book's going to be," and that book was on the NY Times bestseller list for 5 months.

So the whole point is never assuming that someone is smarter than you, just because it seems like they're supposed to know what they're talking about. Because you just might know something and have to come from a place of yes to accomplish that.

Can you really pinpoint a time when that changed and you did start doing that, and things kind of took off from there? Like an incident, a moment, something like that?
Writing my first book, 'Naturally Thin;' I was on the 'Housewives,' but it wasn't the success that it is today. People didn't know who I was. And I wrote this book, and I didn't look at what anyone else is doing. I just played my own game. And I willed it to be so that I would make it a success. I did every single talk show I could do, I told every person I knew, "Could you please buy 10 books?" I worked it. I just came from a place of yes. I was talking to my publishers and I was making them make everything happen that they wouldn't make happen. They said, "This isn't how we market a book," and I said, "This is how we're marketing this book. I know we can make it happen." That's when it came up, when I used to say to them, let's all come from a place of yes. And it ended up working.

Which of the stories was the most difficult for you to put down on paper?
It wasn't difficult, because I'm open, and I'm analytical, and I understand it. It wasn't difficult for me to go there. It was difficult because I know that there are other people that I discuss in the book, and I don't want to hurt anybody. I don't know how to tell my own story without mentioning other people and other things that have happened. So I tried to be as respectful as possible and talk about the fact that there have been so many positive things in my life too. And by no means am I complaining or saying I had a terrible life. So, you know, it's just hard to have to write things that have gone on with other people. You know, you wish you could be in a vacuum and try to tell a story on your own, but you can't.



What's an example of that?
You know, whether it's talking about my father who passed away, he's not even here to read it, and I'm writing that he wasn't the most wonderful father in the world, and trying to be respectful, but the bottom line is, that's what the story is. I'm not gonna not write it because he passed away, but that was hard.

Do you expect to get any kind of blow back from that at all?
I expect possibly my mother maybe, because people will then go to ask her things, and you know it stirs up things in the past possibly. But I'm not really thinking about that, because I'm coming from a place of yes.

Occasionally, the book displays the Bethenny sense of humor. But a lot of it's very serious and very earnest. What was your and your co-authors' decision process there?
It's funny that you ask that, because my co-writer and I -- I love working with her, she's amazing -- she doesn't write the book, she helps me structure. It's like she helps me sort of style and structure things. So she doesn't have anything to do with the words or the tone or anything like that. My publisher kept coming back, and they wanted more of the wit, and the thing is, I just ignored that. I read Chelsea Handler's book and I really do like it, but that's a really funny book that you could tell there was hyperbole, and this isn't what this is about. I really didn't know how nor try to make it funny. I'm inappropriate, but I'm not going to slip a curse into a story just to make it funny. I just did it the way I did it. It just is what it is, you know? It's different. I don't know why. I don't know why, I wasn't comfortable inserting humor. It just wasn't coming naturally to me that way.

Were you surprised when you heard Andy Cohen say that the 'Housewives' weren't expanding to any more cities?
I'm not surprised. I mean, all good things must [come to an end]. Too much of any good thing is too much, still. You don't want to overstay a party. And so it is a party, but they have to have other programming on that network.

Are you happy that you're off on your own now and you're trying to move away from the 'Housewives' brand? Have you felt a relief from that at all?
That's exactly the word. I couldn't have put it better myself. I feel relief from that.

Where does that come from?
I really just wasn't enjoying it. The first season, it was "Oh my goodness," it was exciting, and different, and scary, because I didn't know what it would be. And then, the second season, I was newly single, so that was a whole new thing that I was kind of exploring. And then the third season was completely psychotic and not fun at all. And I really just didn't like it and didn't want to be there, and it wasn't truth to where my life is either.



Your current series seems to be less contrived than a lot of reality series. So what was your goal with the show?
I remember Andy Cohen and the network being like, "What's your story going to be?" And I'm like, "You just put the cameras on, and don't worry." It's just my life. There's just ridiculous things that happen to happen. The only goal that I had was that it was real. I think the truth is more interesting than fiction. And there's not a single, solitary moment of the show that isn't 100% authentically true, to me, and everyone on it. Even so much so that there was a man who was my assistant, and I felt that he was very much on the show and working for me for the wrong reasons. And he's no longer on the show for that reason. I just don't want anything to be not authentic, not real. I have too great a relationship with my fans to screw it up; they're very smart. There's just no reason to manufacture anything because I don't have to.

What do you think people are seeing from you here that they haven't seen from you in the past in 'Housewives,' 'The Apprentice,' or in your other appearances?
Usually on 'Housewives,' you go to to some fabulous party that I wouldn't normally go to. This is in my apartment, in my house, with my baby, with my husband, with no makeup, if I happen to wear no makeup, and if I happen to get dressed up, I can get... But it's just what is really going on in my life on a day to day basis. With my in-laws, with religion, I mean, the show, it goes there, warts and all.

Is the show going to have a third season?
I mean, I can pretty much tell you that they will certainly do another season at least.

What do you think, going forward, now that it's basically just you and Jason and Bryn and the world around you, where do you think other seasons of this show can go?
You know, I never really think about that. I mean, this huge thing was announced for me today [the Jim Beam deal], that changed a lot of my life, and it was a very difficult decision to do this deal. There are a lot of other entertainment opportunities that I've kind of committed myself to, and we'll just be covering the reality of what's going on in my life. And there's a lot there. Where we decide to live, how this business deal affects my life, and traveling, and all kinds of things, you know. I mean, in 2007, I had a negative $50,000 tax return. In 2006, it was negative $100,000. So a lot of my life has changed. And the fans have gone through it firsthand with me. So I think we're on the journey together, so whatever it is, it is.

'Bethenny Ever After' airs Mondays at 10PM ET on Bravo.

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