Last Saturday, the Realest Housewife, Bethenny Frankel, was sipping a margarita at East Hampton’s Mexican hot spot the Blue Parrot, where Renée Zellweger was throwing an exclusive soirée for her new film, My One and Only — though Frankel wasn’t exactly invited. “I’m the official unintentional party-crasher,” Frankel explained. “Tonight, I wanted a margarita, so we come here and I realize it’s like a thing. Somehow I finagled two young girls who realized who I am — or not. And then someone says, ‘Well they’re having a party for Renée Zellweger.’ And I was like, ‘Am I gonna be asked to leave?’ But here we are. I love it, it’s fantastic!” But don’t think Frankel’s gone glamorous: “I don’t give a shit, and everyone here knows I don’t give a shit. I’d be just as happy at Tortilla-Ville. I just find it funny.”
While with Bravo royalty, we turned the topic to NYC Prep, as we’re wont to do. “I thought in the beginning it came on strong and I was in, I had a visceral reaction, it polarized me in a way,” Frankel said. “But then it got whiny and boring and they ruined their Harvard future careers for nothing. I thought it was shitty at the end.” Naturally, we asked Frankel to try to calculate — as we do — the winner. “Well, Jessie can’t win, ‘cause she was the girl who was mean to me in high school. She was that girl, and that girl can never win. She’ll be one of those tragic traginistas. That’s my new word — traginista.”
Kelli, then? “No! Doormat, doormat, doormat.” So who was her victor? “I’ll say PC won, because he has complexity and texture and he went through a lot. He’s a tragic, Shakespearean character, that’s what he is, with the eyeliner. Because in the beginning, he was a pompous little ass, and then towards the end you start realizing he might be gay or bi, he seems somewhat conflicted. I think he’s an old soul in a young body. PC’s a total douche, but he’s tragic. Not tragic like the women on my show — he’s tortured. He’s had a lot to go through, and I get that. From one tortured soul to another, PC wins. I hated him and I ended up sympathizing with him and empathizing with him.”
As a reality-show vet, Frankel’s not actually that worried about the kids’ futures: “On Bravo, there’s no life span, there’s a very short memory span. One week you’re the villain, the next week you’re the hero. Reality television has a very short-term memory span. One week you could be biting your nails and they could be screaming and saying the worst things, and the next week they love you.”
