Bethenny Ever After: SOLD!

Well here we are at the season finale of Bethenny Ever After. I have mixed emotions about our gal after watching these 11 episodes. She’s really quite a mess, but at least she knows that and (mostly) keeps a sense of humor - at least in hindsight. Let’s see how she wraps things up!

"So I ruined my own birthday party. It happens."

So we’re back on the Skinny Girl tour at our first sold out show. Bethenny explains that she loves hearing women’s reactions to her stories and hearing their stories as well, so in order to have a dialogue she is going on a speaking tour. She walks out on stage to everybody screaming for her and she takes a picture of the audience with her cell phone. That’s cute. The stage is set up exactly like she is there to sit down and have a chat with everyone. There’s a rug and a little table set with flowers, a glass of water, and of course, a Skinny Girl margarita. She sits in a chair next to the table and does her thing - which is to talk about her book.

"Coming from a place of yes... is very complicated. You may not understand."

To us, she says that one of the world’s biggest liquor companies wants to buy Skinny Girl. I learned on WWHL that it’s Jim Beam. To her tour audience she talks about trying to get these liquor companies to take an interest in her Skinny Girl idea a couple of years ago and that none of them were the least bit interested. Yeah, most major corporations won’t take a risk on something that isn’t guaranteed to make them a ton of money. So becoming a reality star and forming her own consumer base of fans, then producing the drink herself was really the only way to get them to take notice. That’s just how big business is. Take note, anyone with a great idea. She talks about being the only woman in this male-driven industry (liquor). She tells her audience that she’s inappropriate and so are they. They love her. She can be very endearing. She spends some time answering questions from the audience, which is a great idea because it makes all these women who have helped to make her a success feel like she cares and that she has a personal connection with them. It looks like a fun show to go to. Or perform at. Maybe I’ll give one of these shows and all of you glorious readers can come ask me questions about being a couch potato. HOLLA!

Later on the tour bus Jason and some of the staff bring pizza. Bethenny wants to wake Dawa up to give her some and she talks about how different Dawa is from Gina. I guess Gina ate whatever she wanted all the time and Dawa never eats anything. Everyone on the bus puts on a snuggie and chills out on the way to Philadelphia. Bethenny has an eye mask that looks like closed sheep eyes and she says that when she puts it on the lambs start screaming. Ha ha ha.

"I better not hear anyone going into the bathroom!"

Well look who’s waiting to greet the Skinny Girl bus in Philadelphia. The Hoppys! They are jumping up and down with excitement to see the bus pull up and they are so congratulatory and ecstatic to see it up close and personal. These people are seriously Bethenny’s biggest fans.

"Bethenny for President!"

They all have lunch and Bob and Carol ask her questions about the show and about the Skinny Girl sale. We learn that Bethenny will maintain a large control over the company even after it’s sold - that’s part of the deal. They’re very excited for her and even more excited to watch Bryn eat. They’re so tickled with Bryn eating food off of Bethenny’s spoon that they get out the camera and start snapping pictures. What cute grandparents.

Backstage at Bethenny’s next show Julie and Jackie the intern are hanging out with Bethenny talking about life on the bus. It seems that Jackie has been so nervous about not being allowed to poop on the bus that her entire digestive track has backed up and she can’t poop anywhere now. Well at least the bus smells nice! Jason’s parents are going to be in the audience tonight and Bethenny brings up how sweet they are and how they love everything. She says that Jason’s dad is always saying that everything is awesome. “That was awesome, you were awesome!”

"Bob just texted me about his awesome new phone."

The next shot is the Hoppys coming into the dressing room and the first thing out of Bob’s mouth? “Bethenny, you are AWESOME!” LOL. Jason’s friend Riccio has come along for the show as well. Bob says the crowd is awesome.

The set up tonight is the same as before, with the homey little set and the casual chatting. Bethenny tells the audience that all the important people in her life are from Pennsylvania. Just then some ushers bring Jason and his parents down the aisles to their seats and the crowd freaks out. Bethenny shares that the new title they’ve settled on for Julie is Coordinator of Chaos, the acronym for which is COC, which she finds highly amusing. You know - I brought my COC, ask my COC, call my COC. Then she goes into one of the “lessons” she has in her book, which is called “break the cycle.” This means making the decision to have the life you want to have, instead of the life you were born into. For example, when Bethenny was pregnant with Bryn, her friend told her she knew Bryn would be a girl because Bethenny was going to break the cycle - the cycle of bad mother/daughter relationships she grew up with. This is great advice for people who had crappy childhoods. You don’t have to have a crappy whole life. And your kids don’t have to have crappy childhoods. I myself had a lovely childhood (thanks to my mother breaking HER cycle), so I hope to continue the cycle instead of break it. During the question and answer section, a girl stands up and asks for advice on how to deal with her new in-laws because she’s really struggling with them. Bethenny tells her that dealing with things you don’t want to deal with is part of life. And these are not the people who raised you so there’s going to be an adjustment period. The girl specifically then asks what Bethenny thinks of the Hoppys - even though they are sitting right there. They’re all cute about it and cover their ears.

Bethenny proceeds to tell the audience how the Hoppys have no boundaries.

Just kidding! To her credit, Bethenny says they’re the kindest people she knows, but when they’re together all the time it’s an adjustment because they’ve all had each other for 40 years and she’s just coming into the picture. And they have to adjust to her life and this crazy career she’s got going. That was some balanced perspective from her about that.

When she walks offstage, Carol is standing there. She grabs Bethenny and hugs her for a long time and tells her how wonderful she was. It makes Bethenny cry. Jason says he likes to see Bethenny’s walls coming down with his parents.

"We're still not coming over for Halloween, though."

She tells us that their relationship is growing and that she loves them. That’s sweet. I really do hope she continues to appreciate them because this is exactly the love she missed out on growing up.

And now the bus is off to Delaware! Jason sits down with Julie and tells her to pretend he’s a reporter and that Bethenny will never hear anything she’s about to say. He wants to know what it’s like working for Bethenny. At first Julie just says, “It is what it is.” Wow, glowing praise! When pressed, she says the hardest part is having to be “on” all the time. She says the first three months of Bethenny’s pregnancy was the very worst. Apparently Bethenny hated everyone during that time. Julie says if Bethenny gets pregnant again she wants a three month sabbatical. Then she says that she recognizes that when Bethenny is freaking out about this or that, it’s really Bethenny’s problem, not hers. That’s true, but such a hard thing to remember when the person who signs your paycheck is making your life miserable. Jason actually high fives her on this one.

"But getting the COC title makes everything worth it!"

See, it’s good that Julie and Jason recognize this, but I have very little patience for people who think everybody should act according to their own emotional whims. I mean people like Bethenny, people who are bosses. We’ve all worked for someone like this, amirite? If they’re having a bad day, everyone pays. It’s not professional. We all have bad days, but the people I’m impressed with are the ones who don’t take it out on those around them and conduct themselves professionally in spite of their emotions. I learned a long time ago that no one is responsible for my emotions except for me and I don’t get to just let them run wild and shrug that everyone else just has to deal with it. And I know this is Bethenny’s own business and she can run it however she chooses. I’m just saying that type of approach doesn’t go far with me. I wouldn’t take Julie’s job for ANYTHING. My sanity means too much to me.

And onto the next show! A few minutes before going onstage Bethenny has to go to the bathroom. She’s not sure if she has enough time, but Jason convinces her to go. She has to go up some stairs and down a hallway and she can’t find it. Eventually she comes across what looks like a little airplane bathroom - it even has one of those awkward folding doors.

Bethenny suddenly remembers joining the mile high club.

I don’t think this lasted very long, but we keep getting shots of the audience making it look like they’re waiting and waiting for her to come out onstage. For this show, she comes from the back of the auditorium and high fives audience members on her way up to the stage.

"Who's ready to be inspired?"

This time we get a snippet of her talking about meeting Jason and how he came up to her and asked her if she was ready to get the stick out of her ass. It also turns out that Jason was on a date that night with a Sports Illustrated model. Huh. She talks about needing to get to a place where you are happy with the idea of always being on your own before you will meet the person you’re going to be with. That’s really hard. I mean, I believe it’s vital to be happy with yourself and know who you are before being in a relationship, but I don’t know that I could have ever gotten to a point where I gave up the idea of falling in love and was just content to be on my own. It’s tough. Anyway, more on that at the Conversation with Honey Gangsta show.

For now it’s back to NYC with the entire Skinny Girl tour. On the bus Jackie the intern brings up that she’d like to be known as the COC in training, now that she’s now longer the intern. Bethenny loves it. As do 12-year-old boys everywhere.

Dr. Amador! How have you been, good sir? Today Bethenny would like to talk about the sale of Skinny Girl. She says that she doesn’t care so much about the money now that she’s so happy with her family. She’s a bit worried about raising Bryn in a very privileged way, seeing how Jason grew up with not much material-wise, but a lot of love. Another thing that’s on her mind is her father, and how he never had as much success as she’s having right now. It makes her happy because he was always trying to best her. She would like for him to be alive so that he could hear about her success and kind of eat his heart out. Oh right. People like that always find some way to diminish whatever it is that happens to others. Her dad doesn’t sound like the type who would ever congratulate her - he would find a bunch of reasons why whatever she’s doing is flawed. Dr. Amador reminds Bethenny that this is also her finally feeling like she’s worthy of her dad’s love. Yes, but again, the problem with people like her dad is THEY never let you feel like you are worthy. No matter what you do.

Later Jason and Bethenny are taking a walk in the snow and Bethenny wonders if there will be an email when they get home regarding the Skinny Girl sale. She asks if the deal is final, will they run off and celebrate right away? Jason, ever the levelheaded one, says not to consider the deal done until the money is in the bank. Then he pulls out his cell phone to see if there’s an email.

"Guess what, mommy."

There is! But he won’t read it to her. He just says that the subject is “final offer.” Bethenny gets out her phone and Jason won’t let her look. He says they have to go home and pull it up on the computer. She keeps wanting to look or call someone and he won’t let her.

At home Jason reads the email and tells Bethenny she’s going to be a very rich woman. They never say how much the offer is, but we learned through the media that it was 120 million dollars. Jason is all calm, telling Bethenny that this will allow her to be selective and do what she wants. We get a couple of flashbacks to early RHONY episodes where Bethenny was in the infant stages of this enormous venture. We see the Countess condescending to her very first Skinny Girl margarita, among other things. Now Bethenny is in tears thinking about how much has happened in the last year. Nothing is the same as it was a year ago. And now she wants to take a deep breath.

...If she can stop crying long enough.

Jason mentions the little girl in the other room and how she has no idea about any of this. But what a story to tell her when she’s old enough. They won’t even have to tell her, Dawa can just play her the dvd’s.

Jason has one more thing for Bethenny. He walks out with a flat rectangular box and Bethenny says he’s acting like he’s about to show her the crown jewels.

"You look like you could use what's in this box..."

It does look like he’s going to present her with diamonds or something, but when she opens it, it’s their wedding album. Oh my gosh, that is so sweet! We just got our wedding album last month. I swear it feels like they have to be ordered from Mars, that’s how long it takes to get them. But I could stare at that thing for hours, just remembering the emotions of the day and seeing them so plainly on our faces. It’s so nice that Jason handed her that book just now, as if reminding her that their family is more important than anything else, and it’s beautiful and simple. Bethenny says that getting through a year of marriage isn’t easy, and anyone who tells you it is easy is full of it because it’s a lot of work. I can only speak for my own new marriage, but this last year has been one of the simplest, easiest ones of my life. Without making you barf, I’ll just say that having my favorite person around all the time has been very comforting and lovely. We don’t have a baby, though, so it’s a different situation. We are DINKs (dual income, no kids) and it’s fabulous. Anyway, back to the show. They look through their book together and enjoy this moment. It’s a nice way to end the season. Bethenny says, “And they lived happily ever after.” Awwwww.

"Remember when your buddies trashed the Four Seasons? That was funny."

So that’s it! That wraps up our season of watching Bethenny as a newlywed. I really went back and forth on my annoyance level with her through this - mostly proportionate to the number of tantrums she threw. I like that she ended on a high note. What do you guys think?

As always, I love hearing from you guys and your opinions on all of this. My favorite part is inspiring all of you - ha ha ha ha ha! But seriously, I love you guys.

Thanks for reading!
-Honey Gangsta