Bethenny Frankel hasn’t exactly had an easy go of it in the romance department. Shortly after she finalized her contentious divorce from Jason Hoppy, the former Real Housewives of New York castmate got engaged to film producer and investment banker Paul Bernon, whom she reportedly met on a dating app in 2018, per People. This May, Frankel called off the engagement after six years of dating. Come June, Bernon had been spotted making out with Aurora Culpo, Olivia Culpo’s older sister, who is nearly 20 years Frankel’s junior. Now, after a “disaster of a week,” Frankel has recapped her side of the story on her podcast, and to top it all off, Bernon and Culpo are apparently no longer together as of Monday. Are you still following?!
Backing up for a moment: On Sunday, Frankel dropped an episode of her Just B With Bethenny Frankel podcast, laying out her breakup with Bernon for the first time. The 53-year-old confirmed that the couple split following the “really traumatic loss” of her mother in April. While Frankel said she had “initiated” the breakup conversation, she insisted that the split was ultimately mutual and that things just weren’t working out. She says she kept the end of their engagement to herself, “mourned” on her own, did therapy, and tried her best to move on … until her ex started popping up in headlines with the 35-year-old Culpo.
According to “Page Six,” Bernon and Culpo were first spotted together in late June — less than two months after news broke that he and Frankel had called off their engagement. As headlines multiplied, Culpo revealed on an episode of her podcast, Barely Filtered, that she and Bernon were in fact dating, that he had met her kids twice “on FaceTime and stuff,” and that she had met his kids, whom she described as “older” and “really nice.” Obviously, Frankel did not take well to this news.
“Hearing about your ex-fiancé committing to another woman shortly thereafter on their first date and then being inside their relationship, hearing about their sex and their gifts and meeting each other’s kids and the level of commitment,” she said on Sunday’s podcast, “it was gutting. It was brutal.”
“I just [want to] say that I’m okay,” she continued. “I mean, it was rough because I had to experience the same breakup twice, but way worse the second time because I had to hear about all these details.”
On Monday, the day after Frankel’s podcast debuted, “Page Six” dropped the news that Bernon and Culpo had reportedly broken up after dating for just two months, though neither has publicly confirmed the news. Surprisingly, Frankel had predicted the breakup in her Just B episode, noting that the Culpos seemed way too vocal about a supposedly private relationship for it to be ongoing. Still, from her perspective, the damage (being described as a “spinster,” in Frankel’s words) had already been done.
“Being portrayed as the jilted ex who had been upgraded from — that my ex had moved on from me with a younger woman — and that it regurgitated the continuous narrative that he is a very under-the-radar person who had now gotten serious with someone,” Frankel said, “it’s embarrassing.”
Ending on a slightly threatening note, Frankel recommended that, in the future, the other woman should “tread lightly and be cautious” before “sharing all the details of your new relationship.” Not to worry, though. Frankel again noted she is in therapy and “working on” herself and is convinced she “will survive this.” You get those affirmations, girl. Speak it into truth!
