ML - Michigan Avenue

2012 - Issue 4 - Summer

Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!

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the business oF being Bethenny with a new tv show, novel, and plethora of business ventures, bethenny Frankel has good reason to keep coming back to the city she once called home. by paige wiser photography by andrew eccles Bethenny Frankel has achieved the impos- sible: She gives reality TV a good name. The Bravo star conquered the cruelest medium by using it to publicize her brand and now is embarking on the next episode of her career with her first novel and her own talk show. All this, and she still has her dignity, too. Being "real" is rare enough in reality television, but Bethenny combines her big-city brashness with an irresistible combination of approachability, humor, and resilience—the kind that you can only get in Chicago. Long before she shot to fame as a cast member on The Real Housewives of New York (ironically, without meeting the main requirement: a husband), the future health guru lived here in 1999 and 2000 while engaged to a trader she knew from her Florida boarding school. Still licking some superficial wounds from a decade in Los Angeles as a wannabe actress, she thought Chicago would be her home; it turned out to be a crossroads. "I really didn't know anybody," says Frankel, 41, who lived at George and Racine, next to the Elbo Room. As her relationship deteriorated, she grew isolated. "I would go to the East Bank Club and try to stretch my workout as long as I could, just to have something to do during the day," she recalls. "You could really kind of hang out there. I don't have anyplace like that in New York. "It was a transitional time," says Frankel. "I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. But I knew it was time to hit my stride." 114 michiganavemag.com Rollerblading along the lakefront, she faced some tough truths and began formulating a set of rules: Find what's authentic for you. Stand up for your- self. Take action. And, of course, Chicago's unmatched restaurant scene inspired another key rule: "Taste everything (eat nothing)." Frankel managed to find the best comfort food in town—Mia Francesca, NoMI—without gaining weight. Her biggest challenge was indulging in breakfast at Lou Mitchell's. "It may seem bizarre, but when I think of Chicago, I think of omelets," she says. "I miss the omelets." It helped that Frankel tracked down the relatively few vegan spots, too (Karyn's Fresh Corner, The Chicago Diner). If staying fit in Chicago doesn't qualify you to be a health guru, nothing will. Sadly, when Frankel split with her fiancé, she had to leave Chicago behind, too. "He was a wonderful man, but it was the wrong relationship," says Frankel. While it was ill-fated love that brought her here, it's her true love—big busi- ness—that keeps bringing her back. Last year, Frankel sold her low-calorie Skinnygirl Cocktails line to Deerfield-based Fortune Brands' Beam Global for a reputed $100 million. It earned her a cover of Forbes magazine and a spot on its "Celebrity 100" list above Sandra Bullock and Brad Pitt. But the cocktails are just for starters. This summer, Frankel is taping a six- week test run of a daily talk show, Bethenny. Frankel will be taking on

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