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Former Real Housewives of New York star Bethenny Frankel has spoken about her position on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, after landing in hot water over a social-media post criticizing the duchess.
Frankel told Entertainment Tonight on Monday how an A-list star asked her to take down a post criticizing Meghan over her bombshell-packed interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021.
Responding to a post about the interview, Frankel tweeted: "Cry me a river...the plight of being a game show host, fairly unknown actress, to suffering in a palace, w[ith] 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"
"A very, very, very famous A-plus-plus-plus [...] person called me and asked me to please remove the post and apologize to Meghan Markle," Frankel said.
The reality star denied that the person who made the request was Oprah Winfrey. Frankel declined to comment further when a close friend of the couple, Tyler Perry, was given as another potential A-lister.
After watching the show, Frankel did offer an apology to Meghan over Twitter. However, she has since become a vocal critic of the California-based royal couple through her account on TikTok.
Frankel has made a number of videos offering commentary on Harry and Meghan's media careers. She described their six-part Netflix docuseries in December 2022 as a "smash and grab job for money." And Frankel wrote that the prince's memoir Spare should've been renamed "Dirty Harry Laundry."
Asked about her view that Meghan would make a "perfect fit" for a reality-show Real Housewife, Frankel told Entertainment Tonight's Rachel Smith that "many of Meghan Markle's decisions would be very good for Housewives. Because if you're striving for infamy, oh my god, they had such a veil over them. They were so perfect-looking.
"They've made some interesting choices," Frankel added. "It's like they're feeding off of each other's bad ideas for how to combat being raised in a family where you were not the most relevant, where you were maybe cast aside or thought of as... 'spare, heir'; and an actress who was not really that relevant an actress."
Summarizing, Frankel said that "both probably wanted more from their individual lives, previous to getting together, and they both want to get theirs, and I just think they're not wise in how they're going about it."
Most recently, Frankel gave her assessment of Harry and Meghan's "near catastrophic" car chase, which took place in New York City on May 16.
The star posted a video to her 1.4 million TikTok followers about the incident. The paparazzi followed the couple, together with Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland, from an awards gala at the Ziegfeld Theatre in Midtown Manhattan to the private residence they were staying in. The chase reportedly took place over two hours.
In a statement released by Harry and Meghan's spokesperson afterwards, the couple said that the chase "resulted in multiple near-collisions involving other drivers on the road, pedestrians and two NYPD officers."
The New York Police Department released a more-measured statement. It read that, while the journey from the theater had been "challenging," the duke and duchess "arrived at their destination and there were no reported collisions, summonses, injuries or arrests in regard."
Frankel said the experience, which drew parallels with chases endured by Princess Diana during her lifetime, must have been "scary" for the couple, "but it didn't look like it was actually that dramatic."
"Now the problem is, it's the 'boy who cried wolf'," Frankel added. "Perhaps this was the worst car chase since Princess Diana, but people have a hard time believing it because they've been raising their hands so much, saying: 'We are experiencing the same thing as my mother who was killed in a paparazzi car chase.'"
So far, neither Meghan or Harry has responded to Frankel's commentary.
Newsweek has approached representatives of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex via email for comment.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more