According to a woman in attendance at Rent The Runway’s and UBS’s Project Entrepreneur, Bethenny Frankel made some rather inflammatory remarks on Saturday night in New York City.
It’s worth noting that there’s no recording of the event.
So we’ll need to just take Mary Pryor’s word for what was said on stage by The Real Housewives of New York City cast member… and hope that she’s either lying or there was some kind of misunderstanding.
Because this is some pretty damning stuff.
“I was stunned when Frankel implied that women should have sex with men in exchange for capital,” Pryor Tweeted in summariazing the event.
“I was offended when she expressed some kind of kinship with black women because she’s ‘loud.’
“And I was taken aback when she advised those of us in the room to get business advice to hire a white man as the face of our companies.”
IF Frankel did imply any of these things, it’s pretty terrible.
“For @Bethenny to insist that a young, Black female founder ‘Find a white guy’ to rep her biz is a racial microaggression,” continued Pryor, who said she tried to fight back against Bethenny but got shouted down.
She addedd that she was shocked the organized did not issue a Mea Culpa, writing:
“For #PEIntensive16 to not issue an apology to the women of color in the room that were offended by her statement bothers me.
“I am tired of being asked to be present in the room for female founders events & have my voice SHUT DOWN.”
While not acknowledging exactly what Frankel did or did not say, Project Entrepreneur did later come out with the following statement:
We understand that guests were offended during our Day 1 luncheon, following remarks made by our speaker. This was not our intention and is contrary to our goals. We apologize to our guests.
We launched Project Entrepreneur to champion all women. We thank those of you who candidly spoke out and welcome this important dialogue. We look forward to continuing to empower women entrepreneurs as they build their businesses.
Doesn’t bode very well for Bethenny, does it?