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Bethenny Frankel Talks TikTok Fame, Wine and Why ‘No’ Is Her New Mantra
From making a splash on The Real Housewives of New York City to being a pioneer in the beverage industry, Bethenny Frankel’s resume is certainly robust. These days, on top of spearheading Forever Young Wines, Mingle Mocktails and hosting the podcast Just B with Bethenny Frankel, the entrepreneur and television personality has become something of an accidental influencer, taking platforms like TikTok by storm. With over 2 million followers and over 81 million likes on the app, her transparency, authenticity, wit and humor have kept viewers entertained video after video. From food and makeup reviews, chicken salad deep dives, and simply sharing her opinions on the things that matter to her, Frankel has managed to find her footing in every industry she’s broken into. Here, the social media personality and entrepreneur dishes to FIRST for Women on the “age of authenticity,” finding balance in her hectic life and more.
Bethenny Frankel talks Skinnygirl and her beverage industry evolution
In 2009, Bethenny Frankel shook up the beverage industry with her line of Skinnygirl margaritas—a guilt-free, low-cal alternative to the beloved cocktail that took the world by storm. Since the early days of Skinnygirl margaritas, the Skinnygirl brand expanded to include things like wine, salad dressings, cookies, preserves, snacks and more. Her early forays into the cocktail industry were bold, but today, nearly every celebrity out there is dipping their toes into the world that she’s come to know quite well over the years.
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“It's way harder now because I started this thing,” she told FIRST for Women, explaining how just yesterday she saw a truck advertising a low-calorie, ready-to-drink margarita. “I started something that now, is hard to get back into, whether wine or ready-to-drink cocktails, so it's weird. It's like I'm trying to walk back into a club that I started. And it's not that easy. When I started, celebrities would never hold an alcoholic beverage, would never take a picture with it, would never promote it,” she revealed.
Though the industry looks different now than it did back then, Frankel is far from deterred, continuing to leave her mark in the world of both mocktails and once again, wine. Her successful wine brand, Forever Young Wines, continues to expand with new blends and products that showcase Frankel’s evolution in the beverage world.
“I'm drinking more wine now than I used to, because it just hits differently than a cocktail,” she shared. “I'm also older. It's more elevated. While we had wines with Skinnygirl—which were good, they were functional—this is more intentional. These are from a legitimate, elite winery,” Frankel explained.
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Bethenny Frankel gets real about promoting her own products
These days, Frankel’s marketing model looks a little different than it did back in the early days of Skinnygirl. “It’s funny, I promote my own products less than products that I don't have anything to do with. I catch myself. I'm like, wait a second, you have a popcorn, you have a salad dressing, you have a wine, you have a mocktail, and I'm talking about other people because—I don't know—sometimes I feel weird talking about my own stuff so much,” she said. In a world in which every celebrity has some sort of product or line they’re looking to endorse, Frankel says, “I'm very much in tune to the connection to my audience, and not just waterboarding them with my products, if that makes any sense.”
She continued, “I don't have the same desperation that I've had before. I have good products. I love them. People buy them. I have done really, really well, and I continue to do well. But I'm not broke like I was back then where I had to spend my entire life pushing it through.”
Bethenny talks 'accidental' TikTok fame
If you’ve spent any time on TikTok over the last year, you’re sure to have come across one of Frankel’s videos. From food reviews, product reviews, mukbangs and rants, what you see is what you get when it comes to this witty social media star. “The world is meeting me where I'm at. We're in the age of authenticity right now. This is what's going on and it's shaking up the entertainment industry,” says Bethenny. “People say to me, ‘Oh, when are you gonna be back on TV?’ I'm like, I am on TV—just turn on your freaking phone. I want to talk about it right now.”
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Frankel credits her success on the app to her originality, expressing that the reason why some people struggle on the platform is because the system they’re used to is no longer what viewers want. “They're just used to the traditional model of their teams frosting them, polishing them, putting them out to do the talking point messages that have nothing to do with how they really feel, because they don't even know how they really feel, and it's not working, and so they're confused. It's like, how do you teach people to be authentic?”
“I've always been honest and authentic, and that's why I was successful on the Housewives—not because of a low-calorie margarita, not because of my one-liners, but because people may hate me and I may be polarizing, but they do believe me,” she shares. “Never is anything I say questioned to be true or not. It's just too many years of backing it up and never being caught in anything.”
Finding balance in her busy life
Even though she’s juggling everything from business endeavors to social media to motherhood, Bethenny finds balance thanks to a key mantra she’s implemented into her life: “‘No’ is the new ‘yes’.” Being selective with the things she chooses to do is what allows her to live life on her own terms.
“I want to live. I want to be with my daughter. I want to go to her volleyball games. I want to go out and eat good pasta. I want to go to Europe. I want to dance. I want to laugh. And I want to live, because I'm not going to be 98 years old saying I wish I worked harder. So, I have a discipline now about how I live, and I don't break it for anyone,” she shares.
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As for this new era of success she’s in, Bethenny is counting her blessings and enjoying the journey as it comes. “Something is going right, because I'm 54 years old, and I'm shocked,” she says. “I always say when the tables go cold, I'll walk out, I'm totally fine. But the tables are on fire, so I'm still in the casino. Let’s just let it ride.”
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