Real Housewives star Bethenny Frankel opened up about her struggles living in New York City and admitted that she was the victim of a random punch attack. She also said that comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s defense of the city is off base.
Visiting with Dana Carvey and David Spade on their latest Superfly podcast, Frankel worried that New York City is on its last legs and that it has changed for the worse, The Daily Beast reported.
The TV personality known for her stint on Donald Trump’s The Apprentice noted that she was once visiting a shop around 72nd Ave. in the West End and when she turned around, a man just randomly punched her in the face.
“I turned around and a guy, just as I was walking out the door, just whacked me in the face,” the Bravo star said.
She added that random acts like that give the city a bad reputation that drives people away, adding, “because if I go there and then I text the realtor, ‘Screw this, I don’t wanna live here, this place is nuts,’ because I identify the entire place with that experience.”
She also noted that stores are starting to look like something out of a dystopian movie with products in stores sitting “in cages.”
“It’s going to affect the real estate market and the economy, and then it’s really going to be a circular reference of ‘New York Doom,'” she said.
Frankel then took a swipe at comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Referencing the time Seinfeld clapped back at a writer’s claim that the Big Apple was dead because people are fleeing the city in droves, Frankel insisted that Seinfeld’s defense of the city is off base.
Seinfeld was so incensed by claims that New York City was dead, he wrote his own op ed in 2020 entitled, “So You Think New York is ‘Dead.'”
“Some guy wrote an article during the pandemic about crime, Seinfeld pushed back on it,” she recalled. “It’s been a discussion and there’s been a defensiveness about it, because New Yorkers wanna gaslight and pretend it’s not actually happening and close their eyes and pretend they’re not seeing it.”
“Jerry Seinfeld, I hate to say, ’cause I love him and I know you guys love him, but he was wrong,” she said. Worse, she added that New York has “kind of not been great” since 2020. “When I’m in a drug store, my shoulders are up—like any human that’s near me, I feel like they’re gonna do something to me in the city.”
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