Bethenny Frankel Calls Meghan Markle 'Self Important' and 'Mimicking Diana'

Reality TV star Bethenny Frankel has called Meghan Markle "self important" and "sanctimonious" in a recent podcast episode, before going on to say that the duchess has been "mimicking" Princess Diana in the way she delivers a message.

Frankel, who rose to notoriety for her appearances on the Bravo reality show The Real Housewives of New York, opened up about her feelings towards Meghan on her JustB podcast in an episode titled "The Real Housewife of Buckingham Palace."

The reality star's comments come as Meghan recently launched her own solo podcast, Archetypes, with streaming giant Spotify and took part in a candid interview with New York magazine's The Cut.

"I don't think people like Meghan Markle because I think she talks down to other people," Frankel told podcast listeners on Thursday. "I think she's sanctimonious and I think there's this subtext of elevation. She's up there, we're down here."

The star continued to suggest that Meghan presents the air of a person who believes that they have "institutional knowledge on life and has experienced more than any of us."

"She's very self-important and she's very much like a Housewife," she said referring to the reality TV franchise. "In that she can't stop talking about the very thing that she wants to be irrelevant."

Frankel's main criticism of Meghan is that the duchess continues to discuss or subtly allude to her experiences with the British royal family in her podcast episodes and interviews, despite forging a new life for herself and her family away from them in California.

"So you wanted out of there? OK you got out but it is your husband's family and you keep beating the same storyline," she said about Meghan's stepping down as a full-time royal.

"You want to be a voice for change, a woman for female empowerment, to talk about racism and how unacceptable it is, what it's like to be a woman of color? So do that. So do that in the future.

"Why do we keep, in these subtle nuanced ways, keep referencing things that happened in the past with this one family that doesn't reflect most of the world? That's not relatable."

Later, Frankel said that Meghan had a relatability problem in the way she presents her message, something the star described as "that poised, orchestrated elegance, in that mimicking of Diana, in that Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy-style intentional, very natural, very slow speech."

"Being aghast at the word 'diva,'" she said in reference to Meghan's latest podcast episode where she discussed the negative connotations of the word when applied to women with guest star Mariah Carey. "Who are you relating to?"

This is not the first time that Frankel has spoken critically about Meghan. In 2021, after the announcement that the royal alongside Prince Harry had filmed a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey about their experiences within the royal family, the star took to Twitter.

She wrote: "Cry me a river...the plight of being a game show host, fairly unknown actress, to suffering in a palace, w tiaras & 7 figure weddings for TWO WHOLE YEARS to being a household name w @Oprah on speed dial, fetching 7 m for interviews, hundreds of millions in media deals. #MARRY"

In response to this, Frankel faced many critical comments including from author Glennon Doyle who replied to the Tweet: "The effing irony. Special place in hell, @Bethenny."

Discussing this on her podcast Just B, Frenkel said that she was contacted by an A-List celebrity who requested she retract her comment about Meghan.

"I had a very A-list celebrity, a very wealthy person, call me when I commented on Meghan Markle before the Oprah interview and said to me: 'Can you please take down what you said, they can barely stand up in Frogmore Cottage and they can't afford their security,'" she said.

In her recent interview with The Cut, Meghan intimated that there may be more royal revelations to come as she kept a diary during her time in Britain and was never asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

"It's interesting, I've never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking," she told journalist Allison P. Davis. "I can talk about my whole experience and make a choice not to."

When asked why she doesn't talk, the royal responded that she was "still healing" from the events that unfolded.

Meghan's Archetypes podcast debuted on August 25 and became a near instant hit, topping the Spotify podcast charts on both sides of the Atlantic, toppling top spot inhabitant Joe Rogan in the U.S.

Newsweek approached representatives of Frankel and Meghan Markle for comment.