Diane Bondareff/AP
Bethenny Frankel says her financial success have given her freedom.
- $4 realized she was successful when she was on the cover of Forbes in 2011 after selling $4 for $100 million.
- Still, it took her some time to start making expensive purchases.
- Before "Real Housewives" and Skinnygirl, Frankel said she only had $4.
$4, the New York "Real Housewife" turned millionaire brand mogul, didn't achieve success overnight.
Frankel was hesitant to join the cast of "$4" back in 2008, she said on an episode of Business Insider's podcast "$4" (formerly "Success! How I Did It").
She said she only had $4 at the time; she was working to become a natural-food chef. Eventually Frankel signed on to the show for just $7,250.
After the show took off, Frankel said she knew she would be a success. "I just knew that I was a valuable asset in this, just because I'm an honest storyteller, and there's a lot of comedy along the way," she told Business Insider. As the show found loyal fans, so did Frankel's Skinnygirl brand.
In 2011, she sold Skinnygirl to Beam Global for $100 million while retaining the name rights, continuing to earn a profit. Shortly after, she appeared on the $4 magazine. But Frankel said she still didn't feel financially secure yet.
"I guess I intellectually knew it, but I didn't feel it," Frankel said. "It took me a while to start purchasing things and paying expensive bills for things that I would have cringed at then. Literally, before 'Housewives,' I would have been crying in a corner for a $4,000 pool-heater bill."
Frankel said that getting to a certain level of financial success has given her freedom, but she hasn't accomplished everything she wants to in the business world.
She continued: "I look at business for myself - and I guess a little bit reality TV - as when the tables are hot, you press your bets. Right now the tables are hot, knock on wood. If they go cold, I'll walk. That's how I feel."