The Guestlist at Bethenny Frankel’s ‘Just B’ Dinner Party Was Baffling

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | October 20, 2023 |

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | October 20, 2023 |

Bethenny Frankel is one of the most confounding celebrities I can think of. Her internet presence is all over the place with “snack hacks,” product reviews, and sometimes philanthropy, and this recent “Reality Reckoning” crusade feels like another spaghetti strand to throw at the wall, hoping something will stick.

This week, amidst posts about her charity Bstrong sending aid to Gaza, she also hosted a dinner party with the world’s weirdest guest list: Jennie Garth, Nene Leakes, Larsa Pippen, Elisa Donovan, Tanya Rad, Cheryl Burke, Melissa Rivers, Tiffani Thiessen, Rachel Leviss, and Amaza Smith (who for some reason was not tagged).

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The event was ostensibly for her Just B with Bethenny podcast, which makes some of those included make sense. Nene Leakes and Rachel Leviss have been interviewed, as well as Jennie Garth and Tiffani Thiessen, but the rest of the women are random television and internet stars with seemingly no connection. Tanya Rad is a radio personality who co-hosts KIIS FM’s On Air with Ryan Seacrest. Elisa Donovan appeared in Clueless and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Cheryl Burke is a former DWTS pro, Larsa Pippen and Amanza Smith are both on reality shows, and Melissa Rivers, well, we all know Melissa Rivers.

It’d be one thing if they were all reality TV people or all people she’d interviewed, or if she just felt like inviting a bunch of women she knew to dinner, but she marketed it as a podcast event, which suggests a common thread, no matter how thin. According to the caption of the post, there was a lot of “spilled tea,” so maybe they all have a bone to pick with the entertainment industry and they’re raising an army to do so?

Meanwhile, there’s been rumblings about a Real Housewives exposé in the works at Vanity Fair. Maybe that reckoning is closer than we think, though I’m still confused as to how Elisa Donovan can help. Bethenny has since released an extended conversation with Nene that will apparently be part of a “limited series,” and they talked some about their connections with a few of the women at the dinner, but jury’s still out on whether there was any purpose beyond a very random girls’s night.

If I know Bethenny Frankel, she’s got something up her sleeve.