Lara Sophia 
It seems that Bethenny Frankel may have had more access and control over producers than Real Housewives of New York fans could’ve ever imagined.
According to former RHONY star Carole Radziwill, the Skinnygirl mogul had special privileges during her last few seasons on the show.
The writer turned reality TV star made this bold claim on Monday’s episode of the “Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef” podcast.
“I think [Bethenny] acted as a producer, at least what I saw that last season as talent, and as a producer, she had access to information about the show that none of the rest of us had access to,” Carole claimed.
Carole went on to allege that Bethenny was a part of a group chat between producers, showrunners, and field producers where they talked about scenes that were to be filmed.
“There was the feeling that it was unequal access to production,” she said. “There’s this thing called, like, this story chain. … It was a group text with all the producers, and they would be, all the field producers would be texting what was going on in the scene as it was going on.”
“I think [Frankel] had access to some version of that,” Carole alleged. “It became kind of clear that she had access to it, whether or not directly from producers or just, you know … there were a lot of people on it.”
This gave Bethenny a leg up on the show, according to Carole.
“She knew what was said in scenes that she wasn’t in. We never knew that,” she explained. “So there was clearly some communication that was happening between her and production that wasn’t happening with the rest of us in production. That did make people afraid to say things that they would have said normally because there was a feeling that there was someone who was more protected.”
Carole said she found out about all of this when she borrowed one of the producers’ phones, and she saw a notification from the group chat pop up.
“I only found out about it because I borrowed one of the showrunners’ phone for something,” she recalled. “And then [the notification] came up, and I was like, ‘What is this?’ And it was, like, a really long group. And he grabbed it. He’s like, ‘That’s the story text chain’ or something. I was like, ‘Oh, what?'”
Bethenny and Carole became fast friends until season 10, when they had a major falling out.
Thoughts on this all? Sound off below!
Follow AllAboutTRH On Instagram.
Follow AllAboutTRH On Twitter.
Like AllAboutTRH On Facebook.
