Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty ImagesBethenny Frankel's divorce drama is nearing its end.
Earlier this week, the Real Housewives of New York City star's ex Jason Hoppy finally moved out of her TriBeCa apartment, which she purchased for $5 million in 2011. (The unit was later estimated to be worth about $7 million.) Interior designers Mariette Himes Gomez and Brooke Gomez renovated the residence years ago, and now Frankel is planning to put it on the market.
Frankel bought the apartment under a trust and named herself and Hoppy as its beneficiaries. However, during a court hearing in March 2016, a judge ruled the trust was actually invalid. During one of many court hearings in 2014, Frankel said living with Hoppy after their breakup was "brutal," "horrendous" and "excruciating." Unable to co-habitate any longer, she stayed in hotels and even got a temporary apartment before finding a permanent place to live in SoHo.
Frankel returned to her marital abode several days ago, and it turned out to be an emotional experience. "I walked in and it just washed over me. I sobbed for hours," the 45-year-old Bravo reality star said Wednesday on her Sirius XM radio show, B Real with Bethenny. "It was like this release. And you always think things are going to be one way. I thought it was going to be, like, the biggest party ever. I'd be roller-skating through there with my top off, my tits hanging out, so excited—and there's nothing good about any of it. It was all just remembering moving in there. It was a hideous experience, and I just didn't know how to even process the feeling."
Frankel did not reveal where Hoppy currently resides.
It's been an emotional week for Frankel. The day before she returned to the apartment, she decided to reach out to her mother, with whom she's been estranged for years. "My daughter said, 'Mommy, are your parents alive?' I said, 'My daddy's not alive and my mommy is alive.' She said, 'I want to meet your mommy,'" she said. "I thought, 'Oh God, I've got to reach out to her.'" To her surprise, her mother was receptive and the conversation was not "totally unpleasant."
"I think that she—and maybe my stepfather—have been hurt because some of the truths of my childhood have been in some of my books as it pertains to how I got here success-wise and how I got here sucking at relationships-wise," Frankel said. "So, I said to her, 'This is my truth, and I've only told about 10 percent of my truth. And your life is your truth and what got you here. And the mistakes that you made—you had me at 20—I'm not angry. I'm just telling you that my daughter has asked for you. She's 6 years old.' It was actually not an excruciating conversation."
The was a small but necessary step in beginning the healing process. "I just feel like I've grown up a little in the way that I handled it," Frankel told her listeners. "I'm not angry about anything, about any of my childhood. It wasn't exactly ideal, but everyone has their s--t. So I feel like I'm kind of cleaning up messes. I just feel like I know that if my mother, God forbid, passes away one day and I don't have this thing in my drawer dealt with, it's going to be really bad."