We may have seen Bethenny Frankel break down in tears in the latest Real Housewives of New York City, but she knows that there’s a way that she can move forward.
We’ve all heard about how Jason Hoppy has put Bethenny Frankel in hell through all of his alleged stalking and harassment and their nightmarish divorce battle.
Bethenny says that she knows how this has to end.
So, Bethenny Frankel’s divorce from Jason Hoppy was long, painful, and nightmarishly expensive.
They may be exes now, but they’ll always be linked through their young daughter, Bryn.
Jason Hoppy’s arrest back in January was actually over threats that he’s accused of making to Bethenny Frankel at Bryn’s school.
(Imagine threatening the mother of your child at your child’s school — that’s so unimaginably hateful)
Jason Hoppy was arraigned on additional stalking charges over the summer, before that first arrest was even dealt with in court.
The details weren’t immediately made apparent, but it appears that he may have been harassing a third party as part of his alleged campaign of harassment against Bethenny.
Like … does he not have hobbies?
Don’t get us wrong — Bethenny Frankel can come across as callous and dismissive of other people’s problems sometimes.
(A lot, actually)
But there’s a difference between having what some might call an “abrasive” personality and being an actual menace.
Jason Hoppy is due back in court in September (his motion to have the charges against him was dismissed earlier this month), and maybe Bethenny will get some sort of resolution then.
Bethenny Frankel lamented to Andy Cohen how her conflict with Jason Hoppy has impacted her relationship with other Real Housewives.
But she knows what can resolve this and put it behind her.
“Any resolution is legally mandated and I’m fine with that.”
She’s putting a lot of faith in the court.
“I don’t care what happens, I have faith that somehow I will be able to live a normal free life.”
Basically, she’s not campaigning to have Jason Hoppy put in prison. But there’s just one thing that she needs.
“But it has to be with zero contact. Because with any contact, this will not end.”
She says that she can’t accurately describe what this has been like for her.
She does temporarily lapse into some unfortunate hyperbole.
“It is indescribable and it is inexplicable and it’s like, if someone wants to talk about like a war zone in Israel, how are you going to explain that to someone?”
But she quickly clarifies that she’s not trying to equate her situation with a genuine humanitarian crisis.
“I’m not comparing this to actual war but in my life, you can’t even imagine the torment that this has been. There’s no way to describe it.”
We get it — trauma is difficult to articulate. When you try, you feel like you sound silly. It’s not silly, though.
“I just stifled it in because if I let any of it out, I’m going to totally break down. I can’t believe this happened to me.”
Keeping it suppressed doesn’t work, in the long term. While things are going on, bottling things up helps you survive.
Over time, though, those coping mechanisms backfire. That’s why PTSD is so rough.
And yes, you can absolutely get PTSD from stalking.
Bethenny found the entire struggle to be inescapable.
“It was part of my life. I thought I was never getting out of it. I couldn’t even understand it. How can I explain this to everybody?”
We know that she’s doing charity work to help other women, but we wonder if she’s met with a victim advocate to try to just articulate her own situation.
Bethenny isn’t really the “ask for help’ type, but it really might help her.
“You’ve never — it is torture. So that’s why I didn’t explain it. There’s no way to describe this to anybody. Nobody would believe it.”
Jason Hoppy might not be done tormenting her, though, because he didn’t immediately accept a plea deal that would have basically gotten him off scott free.
We have to ask why he’s so obsessed with having contact with Bethenny that he would apparently rather continue his court battle than continue to be legally barred from having contact with her.
Maybe he doesn’t want it on his record or claims that he’s innocent — though an officer was a witness to and confirmed Bethenny Frankel’s account of the January incident at Bryn’s school, so … good luck with that?
More than anything else, we hope that this situation doesn’t hurt Bryn.