Dina Manzo claims she’s just trying to offer pearls of wisdom to fellow Housewives alum Bethenny Frankel amid their viral drama over business etiquette.
Frankel, 55, uploaded a Saturday, May 16, Instagram video of herself strutting down a New York City sidewalk, wearing an all-leather outfit with coordinating pumps.
“Better change back to your comfortable @shopnou_ heels,” Manzo, 54, replied in the comments, referring to her daughter Lexi’s footwear brand. “Looks like you almost ate pavement there for a minute.”
Manzo later clarified that her response was just an alleged attempt at being kind to Frankel.
“Just giving her some advice for the ‘long game’ but guess she didn’t like it?” Manzo wrote via her Instagram Stories. “I mean, she did trip.”
Several hours earlier, Manzo and Lexi, 30, claimed that Frankel refused to credit her Nou mules in a social media video showcasing her outfit.
“Bethenny Frankel is a weirdo,” Lexi said in a social media post of her own. “I sent her a pair of shoes from Nou almost a year ago because I look up to her. [She is a] female entrepreneur [and from the] Bravo universe like me.”
While Lexi said she understood that Frankel couldn’t tag every designer she wore, the influencer was more upset that the Skinnygirl founder shared an affiliate link for a “dupe” pair instead.
“OK, that happens, but then she posted a video today that’s going viral and a bunch of people are asking where the shoes are [from]. Instead of linking them, she linked a dupe with an affiliate link,” Lexi alleged. “I guess she’s got to get that bag in some sort of way? So, she got the shoes for free from a woman-founded brand, mine, and then she made money sending her followers somewhere else.”
Manzo subsequently supported her daughter.
“So odd of you to post a dupe of your GIFTED @shopnou shoes instead of giving a young woman entrepreneur credit,” Manzo wrote via her Instagram Stories on Friday, May 15. “You wear them often so we know you like them??”
Frankel issued a response within hours.
“I don’t usually respond to things like this but I think there’s a business lesson here,” Frankel said in a Saturday TikTok video. “The shoes were sold out so we linked to something similar because the audience gets frustrated when there’s something they can’t buy. Why would I wear something and talk about it, if they can’t buy it?”
Frankel further stated that she has no obligation to share links to the designers of her ‘fits.
“I have stated multiple times that if you send me something, I have no obligation to link, like, use, wear, buy, tag. I can do whatever I want,” she said. “There are about a hundred brands that will watch this video that will message her to tell her how much product I move. … I move a lot of product because I don’t bulls***.”
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