Bethenny Frankel Calls Second Divorce Her Worst Experience Yet
By Afouda Bamidele on December 3, 2025 at 5:30 PM EST
Sticks and stones may not break Bethenny Frankel's bones, but this nasty divorce case came close!
The "Real Housewives of New York City" alum parted ways with her then estranged husband, Jason Hoppy; however, it did not happen without leaving a permanent, torturous mark on her psychological health.
Bethenny Frankel and her second husband parted ways in 2012 and filed for divorce a year later. However, things were not officially finalized until January 2021 due to a contentious legal battle between the couple.
Bethenny Frankel Details Her Very Traumatic Divorce
The former reality star got into details of her divorce from her estranged husband, claiming that the decision left her battered and bruised emotionally. Frankel added that even her terrible experience as a child could not compare to the things she went through during the process of finalizing the divorce.
"I have seen my mother slit her wrists. I have lived my whole life chasing her into bathrooms, trying to catch her throwing up. I've been through everything. I've seen her beaten within an inch of her life. I have seen everything. Nothing compares to what my divorce was for 10 years. Nothing," the star declared.
As shared by Page Six, she emphasized that her mother's lifelong struggles with alcohol and eating disorders were very little compared to the pain of having someone torture her and mean it.
The Media Personality Recalled Staying Alive For The Sake Of Her Daughter
Frankel noted that it also did not help that she was the more successful and visible of the pair, which made her ex appear like the victim. In her words: "It was so traumatic. It was 10 years of my life. I lost hair. I thought I would never survive it. I didn't want to."
She further noted to Cooper during the podcast, while holding back tears, that she had to stay strong because of her daughter. The TV personality confessed that she literally thought she would never be happy again due to the unfortunate experience.
Frankel continued that she treated the process like a marathon, checking every box and refusing to neglect every other intricacy in the process. According to her, the allegations in the divorce include fraud, stealing, hacking, harassment, andabuse.
"It was Googling me 60 times a day, it was staying in bed and staring into my face, it was calling me every bad character in the books," the influencer continued.
Most importantly, Frankel saw her divorce as a situation to stress the importance of putting a prenuptial agreement in place before diving into the process of marrying anyone.
Bethenny Frankel Admitted To Ignoring The Warning Signs Before Walking Down The Aisle
Last year, the Bravo alum relived the early days of her romance with her ex-husband, where she threw caution to the wind before saying "I Do" to the pharmaceutical expert.
According to PEOPLE, she noted that his initially charming demeanor soon became the very thing she disliked about her ex as it got unbearably toxic. The SkinnyGirl founder advised her audience to really put their ears to the ground for the red flags and the unfavorable parts of the relationships. In her words:
"If you know something's not right, you get the f-ck out. ... And if you don't know that it's right, it's wrong. ... That's just a point blank fact."
She confessed that there was no attraction in the first place, as she had just convinced herself with logic that she should be in the relationship. Frankel noted that she allowed societal pressure to influence her decision to get married in her late 30s because she felt time was wasting.
"I didn't really have family, so I had no safety net, no security with money, and no idea. And I just wanted to be wanted," the TV star affirmed.
The Reality Star's Divorce Deposition
The 55-year-old dragged her former lawyer, Jamie Andrew Schreck, into a deposition case in 2019 after accusing him of improperly drafting trust documents, which helped her ex get more in their divorce settlement.
As shared by The Blast, Frankel got the permission of the judge to depose her former attorney about the real situation surrounding the trust.
She was also instructed to release documents relating to the divorce proceedings. In her filing, Frankel claimed her ex-husband convinced her to place her $5 million Manhattan condo in a trust in 2011.
Once the battle line was drawn in their divorce, she discovered the trust gave Hoppy a 50% share of the property, which gave him the right to live there and not pay rent while the divorce was going on. This, she blamed on her former lawyer for letting it happen under his professional supervision.
Frankel also faulted her former attorney for letting her ex's mother be the notary for the trust despite her not being a licensed legal notary in New York. She claimed her former lawyer was absent when the trust documents were notarized, and she never even caught a glimpse of the trust document in question.
Bethenny Frankel Moved Out Of New York For A Fresh Start In Florida
Earlier this year, the Instagram influencer announced her move to Florida alongside her teenage daughter for personal and professional reasons. Frankel acknowledged that it became too lonely for her in New York after she purchased a home big enough to live as one big happy family.
According to him, "the house was drowning me because it had an apple orchard, it was a historical house, it had all this property, and it was beautiful and amazing for a big family with kids and grandparents."
She added that the home felt very empty as she did not have a community to surround her and love her. The feeling of emptiness led her to make a decision to simplify her environment and move to a place where she would never have to be alone for the ride.
Frankel noted that she initially wanted to wait for her daughter to attend college in New York, but the move could not wait to happen anymore, so Florida became their new home.
