Bethenny Frankel Says She Hasn’t Been ‘Totally Honest’ About Reason for Move to Florida

Back in April, the 54-year-old former Real Housewives of New York City star revealed she was relocating to the sunshine state, but hasn’t shared too much about what led to the life-changing move.

“I haven’t been totally honest with you about this move,” Frankel said in an emotional video posted Sunday. “I’ve been pretty lonely the past five or six years. And it started with the pandemic which gave me license to be the introvert and insular person that everyone is surprised that I am.”

While fans have come to know Frankel as an outspoken and social TV personality, she admitted that’s not her reality behind closed doors.

“My friends know it very well because I look like a social person but I’m not! I could be home for days without leaving the house and the pandemic gave me license to do that,” she added.

The entrepreneur and mom to 15-year-old Bryn — whom she shares with ex-husband Jason Hoppy — said her decision to head south was a long time coming.

“We were out in the Hamptons, and then I moved to the suburbs and I thought it was gonna be amazing,” Frankel, who first opened up about the move last month, explained. “It really became a cave where I was lonely and home and never did anything. The only time I would have fun would be when I would go out of town.”

Frankel, who previously cited her daughter as one of the reasons for the move, revealed that both she and Bryn were aligned on leaving New York.

“She’s like, ‘Well, I didn’t realize you were so lonely and unhappy,'” she shared. “Bryn wants me to be happy, and she knows this is what I need.”

Despite her departure from the city she was born and raised in, Frankel said this isn’t a goodbye forever — and, as she previously told her followers, will be keeping a home in NYC.

“I Ironically think this move is gonna reinvigorate my relationship with this city,” she said. “New York has become transactional for me… I have just been keeping this inside because when you have something going on that you can’t change, you don’t talk about it.”

“And I just don’t think that I was really honest with myself with about how intense it was,” Frankel added.

Frankel also shared some insight into her new life in Florida, highlighting the slower pace and sense of peace it’s already bringing her.

“When I go to Florida, I walk outside and I go take a walk on the beach and I’m just existing like with other human life,” she said.

The move comes after a tough 2024 for Frankel, whose six-year relationship with longtime partner, Paul Bernon, ended last May. In addition to calling off their engagement, the Skinny Girl founder also grieved the the death of her mother, Bernadette Birk, who passed away from lung cancer last year.

“I don’t want to just rot at home and feel like I’m wasting, like, years of my life,” Frankel maintained. “All I’ve done in the last five or six years is reflect. I’ve done my reflecting. I’ve done my therapy. My mom died. I had, you know, a lot going on.”

“I’m ready to live,” she added.