July 4, 2025 • 9 mins
Bethenny Frankel discusses founding Skinnygirl, which became the fastest-growing alcohol brand in history. Bethenny says companies had no interest in a low-calorie, ready-to-drink alcohol product. She shares she was hesitant to sell her product she calls “lightning in a bottle," but admits she wanted the street credit. She also chats about licensing the Skinnygirl name.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hey guys, Graham here. It's Friday, which means we get
to share with you another one ofour most popular clips from a
past interview this week, Bethenny Frankel.
What you're about to listen to is trending this week on our
Facebook page. Hope you enjoy all.
Right, so big turning point for you professionally was Skinny
Girl. Explain how little interest
(00:22):
there was in your idea for the low calorie mixed drink
initially and then how quickly that changed.
There was no interest at all because when I got into alcohol,
publicists told their clients, put the drink down every client.
No one was promoting alcohol, noone.
And the guy who is responsible for the success of Grey Goose
said to me, I said to him, quoteUN quote, this is a idea.
(00:44):
He said there is no such thing as a idea in the liquor business
because there had been no ideas in the liquor business.
There were no new categories, there were no new inventions.
It was you sold booze, that was,it sold wine to women, sold
Scotch and whatever. Before me, no one drank the
clear tequila. The men did.
The men were drinking the patron.
But I gave license to women to drink clear tequila and to drink
(01:04):
this, this. And I invented the skinny
Margarita, which is literally inRussia.
They're ordering skinny margaritas.
I'm not exaggerate. Like all over the world.
It's crazy. So I would go to these different
companies. I went to Diageo, to their
Cuervo section, to their other sub departments.
The people that got me the meetings didn't even show up to
(01:25):
the meetings. It was literally me and the
person at Diageo being like, yeah, no, we're good.
And then for Angelico gave me, Iremember half $1,000,000 to do
something, to do a skinny like Frangelini and like, OK.
And then Sousa came to me to give me $200,000 to talk about
their thing and make drinks withtheir thing.
But I was like, I want to do my own thing, but I would have even
done a collaboration and they could have taken half of it with
(01:47):
any of these companies. I, I didn't even know what I
wanted. I just knew that I wanted you to
be able to order my drink my way.
So. But people had such little
interest in it that they wouldn't.
No, like, not a little, like, get out of here.
Like you're in it. You know, you're just like,
yeah, no, like, completely no interest.
So there was an agent that represented Kim Kardashian.
(02:08):
And there was a man who called for Kim Kardashian.
He wanted to pay her $50,000 to promote a product.
The agent called back says Kim Kardashian doesn't drink, but I
have this girl who has this ideafor this drink.
The agent called the guy back. I met the guy.
He was the only guy. He was the only guy.
His uncle had created Sky Vodka and he was an interim CEOCOO.
(02:31):
He had never made any kind of money like that.
Like it's just like a finance guy made normal money and he was
the only guy and it wasn't even a real lawyer.
It was like a veterinarian slashlawyer, like a dentist slash
lawyer that did the deal. It was like not complicated at
all because but I always had good instincts about what it it
should be like, how the deal should work.
So why'd you almost not tell? Because I didn't know anything.
(02:55):
I mean, because I because I, because I didn't, it was the
same reasons I did. I was like, why didn't I sell?
Because it was so soon. It was 18 months from the idea
to the shelves and we were the fastest growing liquor brand in
history. We created the ready to drink
category and I invented the skinny Margarita and invented
the low calorie category. Every can you see that says
calories is because of this brand.
(03:16):
Every can you see is because of this brand.
It was a ready to drink product that was like a not They had
crappy cheap versions of Bacardiand discount baskets at the
drugstore. It was not, you know, the years
before there had been wine coolers like those sweet, sugary
it just so you know, I was very aware of two things that I
created something that was lightning in a bottle, but I was
(03:37):
also aware that I didn't have myfirst pile.
I didn't have any money. I hadn't made a single cent.
If there was any sort of legal issue, it would bury me like I I
also knew I wanted St. cred. It would give me the street
credit. It would be like I we turned a
brand. I mean the fact no one, no one
really realized it was the fastest growing liquor brand.
The liquor companies did. What's interesting about this is
(03:59):
that after my deal, Kim Kardashian learned to drink
Midori for $1,000,000 when she went as Green Envy for
Halloween. So I really was an influencer in
every other celebrity, includingGeorge Clooney.
Including well. Yeah, now everybody has.
Yeah, you're welcome. Like, that is fully as a result
of 'cause I remember Mark Berg saying to me, Charlie, she wants
(04:21):
a liquor deal now. And I remember saying Justin
Timberlake wants ever wants a liquor deal because I because
the cover of Forbes and The Hollywood Reporter was just
disruptive. And it drove Bravo crazy too,
because they didn't have a pieceof that deal.
And the company that bought us was like, we're going to do this
with Skinny Sousa, which I now realize wouldn't have competed
and none of them have ever competed with Skinny Girl.
You can't around with what you're not willing to lose.
(04:42):
You know, pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.
It was a lot of money. It would have been probably five
times the amount if it were. If it were now, it would be 5
times the amount. If it were Clooney days, it
would be the The thing is, I started it so we couldn't set
the price to what it would end up being for brands like the
Clooney or the Pinnacle because I started so I was too early.
But someone had to the Band-Aid off.
(05:02):
Looking back now, are you glad you sold when you did?
Yes, I had to start it. It was the first horse and other
people got a lot more money because of it.
But it doesn't mean if I stayed in I would have gotten more
money because of it. I, we were too, someone would
have I, I wasn't willing to takethe risk that someone could
drown us in a, in a, in a category I didn't deserve to be
(05:22):
crushing when the it's the mafia, the liquor business, the
the liquor business is the mafia.
So getting on those corners was crazy.
And you did it in 18 months an. Animal, I was an animal.
I did that in my first book too.When you're young and you're
hungry like that or you're thirsty.
I did, I was did a pregnant, I was pregnant selling alcohol.
It was insane. When I'm an animal, I'm a full
(05:42):
animal, but I have to be in beast mode and I, and I'm
telling one of my other partnersnow I'm I'll be in like, if you
have to give me more equity and I'll go into beast mode, but
without more equity, I'm not. So she's making very small
picture decisions because she's against the clock and she's
sitting in purgatory. So I'm either in beast mode or I
don't give a mode. And right now she's got me in,
(06:04):
she's in purgatory and it's we're going one way or the
other. And she'd be very smart to like,
say, go and beast mode. So you sold Skinny Girl to be
global, but you retain the rights to be able to use the
name in any way that's not connected to alcohol?
So like, what does that entail now?
I love the licensing business and I don't love the licensing
(06:26):
business. What I love about the licensing
business is that the few categories I entered into,
they're still making me millionsof dollars now and they don't
want me to do anything, which isbizarre.
Like no one's calling me from Con Agra to say push that
popcorn. I just do 1.
So I forget I even have these brands and I love them.
No one's pushing me to push salad dressing because they've
(06:47):
got it in the machine. It's the distribution machine.
So what it entails is not a lot it entails not a lot.
It entails good product, good partners.
Is that also what you? Dislike.
About it, no, I don't not like it.
I just a lot of them don't hit and in the beginning you have to
really make the decisions right and you have to decide you're
going to be at the right partners and everyone promises
(07:09):
you a whole big thing. I also don't love it because it
comes from external. It's they come to you to want to
do the thing and I'm a person that usually comes it comes from
me to do the thing. So when I'm on Shark Tank, it's
bizarre and counterintuitive because they've got this thing
(07:30):
that they want to do. And typically if that idea has
been presented to me, it's presented to me because the
producers have known it's something that's geared towards
a female audience or something that's either health or beauty
or something that I touch. So then now I'm going to take a
small percentage of that thing that I, if I wanted to do it, I
could do it because I'm actuallya founder and an entrepreneur.
Most of the other sharks are investors.
(07:51):
They understand businesses and they understand brands, but I
haven't seen a product come fromKevin O'leary's body or Mark
Cuban's body. They are amazing at investing
and understand so much more thanI do about the other side of it.
But it's not usually, if it's not a financial product, it's
not usually coming from like a solution that they're seeing in
society. So relicensing is usually coming
(08:12):
from the market and often the market doesn't know what the
people want. They're late.
I've got, I've had partners cometo me, a beverage company came
to me, a multibillion dollar beverage company to try to like
chase the product that someone else is doing, which means in a
year we're going to be on the shelves next to them.
And I knew, I predicted this. I knew that they would be
already out and I wanted to do something else and battled with
(08:34):
my partner. I was like, I want to chase the
market. I know what I want to do.
And the person who ended up doing what I wanted to do sold
it for like 60 to $100 million fast.
So I like the ideas that come from within for the most part
because I don't like to listen to like, data and research about
what women are going to want. And that's this week's fan
favorite. To see more popular videos, go
to ouryoutubechannel@youtube.com/graham
(08:55):
Bensinger.
Hey guys, Graham here. It's Friday, which means we get
to share with you another one ofour most popular clips from a
past interview this week, Bethenny Frankel.
What you're about to listen to is trending this week on our
Facebook page. Hope you enjoy all.
Right, so big turning point for you professionally was Skinny
Girl. Explain how little interest
(00:22):
there was in your idea for the low calorie mixed drink
initially and then how quickly that changed.
There was no interest at all because when I got into alcohol,
publicists told their clients, put the drink down every client.
No one was promoting alcohol, noone.
And the guy who is responsible for the success of Grey Goose
said to me, I said to him, quoteUN quote, this is a idea.
(00:44):
He said there is no such thing as a idea in the liquor business
because there had been no ideas in the liquor business.
There were no new categories, there were no new inventions.
It was you sold booze, that was,it sold wine to women, sold
Scotch and whatever. Before me, no one drank the
clear tequila. The men did.
The men were drinking the patron.
But I gave license to women to drink clear tequila and to drink
(01:04):
this, this. And I invented the skinny
Margarita, which is literally inRussia.
They're ordering skinny margaritas.
I'm not exaggerate. Like all over the world.
It's crazy. So I would go to these different
companies. I went to Diageo, to their
Cuervo section, to their other sub departments.
The people that got me the meetings didn't even show up to
(01:25):
the meetings. It was literally me and the
person at Diageo being like, yeah, no, we're good.
And then for Angelico gave me, Iremember half $1,000,000 to do
something, to do a skinny like Frangelini and like, OK.
And then Sousa came to me to give me $200,000 to talk about
their thing and make drinks withtheir thing.
But I was like, I want to do my own thing, but I would have even
done a collaboration and they could have taken half of it with
(01:47):
any of these companies. I, I didn't even know what I
wanted. I just knew that I wanted you to
be able to order my drink my way.
So. But people had such little
interest in it that they wouldn't.
No, like, not a little, like, get out of here.
Like you're in it. You know, you're just like,
yeah, no, like, completely no interest.
So there was an agent that represented Kim Kardashian.
(02:08):
And there was a man who called for Kim Kardashian.
He wanted to pay her $50,000 to promote a product.
The agent called back says Kim Kardashian doesn't drink, but I
have this girl who has this ideafor this drink.
The agent called the guy back. I met the guy.
He was the only guy. He was the only guy.
His uncle had created Sky Vodka and he was an interim CEOCOO.
(02:31):
He had never made any kind of money like that.
Like it's just like a finance guy made normal money and he was
the only guy and it wasn't even a real lawyer.
It was like a veterinarian slashlawyer, like a dentist slash
lawyer that did the deal. It was like not complicated at
all because but I always had good instincts about what it it
should be like, how the deal should work.
So why'd you almost not tell? Because I didn't know anything.
(02:55):
I mean, because I because I, because I didn't, it was the
same reasons I did. I was like, why didn't I sell?
Because it was so soon. It was 18 months from the idea
to the shelves and we were the fastest growing liquor brand in
history. We created the ready to drink
category and I invented the skinny Margarita and invented
the low calorie category. Every can you see that says
calories is because of this brand.
(03:16):
Every can you see is because of this brand.
It was a ready to drink product that was like a not They had
crappy cheap versions of Bacardiand discount baskets at the
drugstore. It was not, you know, the years
before there had been wine coolers like those sweet, sugary
it just so you know, I was very aware of two things that I
created something that was lightning in a bottle, but I was
(03:37):
also aware that I didn't have myfirst pile.
I didn't have any money. I hadn't made a single cent.
If there was any sort of legal issue, it would bury me like I I
also knew I wanted St. cred. It would give me the street
credit. It would be like I we turned a
brand. I mean the fact no one, no one
really realized it was the fastest growing liquor brand.
The liquor companies did. What's interesting about this is
(03:59):
that after my deal, Kim Kardashian learned to drink
Midori for $1,000,000 when she went as Green Envy for
Halloween. So I really was an influencer in
every other celebrity, includingGeorge Clooney.
Including well. Yeah, now everybody has.
Yeah, you're welcome. Like, that is fully as a result
of 'cause I remember Mark Berg saying to me, Charlie, she wants
(04:21):
a liquor deal now. And I remember saying Justin
Timberlake wants ever wants a liquor deal because I because
the cover of Forbes and The Hollywood Reporter was just
disruptive. And it drove Bravo crazy too,
because they didn't have a pieceof that deal.
And the company that bought us was like, we're going to do this
with Skinny Sousa, which I now realize wouldn't have competed
and none of them have ever competed with Skinny Girl.
You can't around with what you're not willing to lose.
(04:42):
You know, pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.
It was a lot of money. It would have been probably five
times the amount if it were. If it were now, it would be 5
times the amount. If it were Clooney days, it
would be the The thing is, I started it so we couldn't set
the price to what it would end up being for brands like the
Clooney or the Pinnacle because I started so I was too early.
But someone had to the Band-Aid off.
(05:02):
Looking back now, are you glad you sold when you did?
Yes, I had to start it. It was the first horse and other
people got a lot more money because of it.
But it doesn't mean if I stayed in I would have gotten more
money because of it. I, we were too, someone would
have I, I wasn't willing to takethe risk that someone could
drown us in a, in a, in a category I didn't deserve to be
(05:22):
crushing when the it's the mafia, the liquor business, the
the liquor business is the mafia.
So getting on those corners was crazy.
And you did it in 18 months an. Animal, I was an animal.
I did that in my first book too.When you're young and you're
hungry like that or you're thirsty.
I did, I was did a pregnant, I was pregnant selling alcohol.
It was insane. When I'm an animal, I'm a full
(05:42):
animal, but I have to be in beast mode and I, and I'm
telling one of my other partnersnow I'm I'll be in like, if you
have to give me more equity and I'll go into beast mode, but
without more equity, I'm not. So she's making very small
picture decisions because she's against the clock and she's
sitting in purgatory. So I'm either in beast mode or I
don't give a mode. And right now she's got me in,
(06:04):
she's in purgatory and it's we're going one way or the
other. And she'd be very smart to like,
say, go and beast mode. So you sold Skinny Girl to be
global, but you retain the rights to be able to use the
name in any way that's not connected to alcohol?
So like, what does that entail now?
I love the licensing business and I don't love the licensing
(06:26):
business. What I love about the licensing
business is that the few categories I entered into,
they're still making me millionsof dollars now and they don't
want me to do anything, which isbizarre.
Like no one's calling me from Con Agra to say push that
popcorn. I just do 1.
So I forget I even have these brands and I love them.
No one's pushing me to push salad dressing because they've
(06:47):
got it in the machine. It's the distribution machine.
So what it entails is not a lot it entails not a lot.
It entails good product, good partners.
Is that also what you? Dislike.
About it, no, I don't not like it.
I just a lot of them don't hit and in the beginning you have to
really make the decisions right and you have to decide you're
going to be at the right partners and everyone promises
(07:09):
you a whole big thing. I also don't love it because it
comes from external. It's they come to you to want to
do the thing and I'm a person that usually comes it comes from
me to do the thing. So when I'm on Shark Tank, it's
bizarre and counterintuitive because they've got this thing
(07:30):
that they want to do. And typically if that idea has
been presented to me, it's presented to me because the
producers have known it's something that's geared towards
a female audience or something that's either health or beauty
or something that I touch. So then now I'm going to take a
small percentage of that thing that I, if I wanted to do it, I
could do it because I'm actuallya founder and an entrepreneur.
Most of the other sharks are investors.
(07:51):
They understand businesses and they understand brands, but I
haven't seen a product come fromKevin O'leary's body or Mark
Cuban's body. They are amazing at investing
and understand so much more thanI do about the other side of it.
But it's not usually, if it's not a financial product, it's
not usually coming from like a solution that they're seeing in
society. So relicensing is usually coming
(08:12):
from the market and often the market doesn't know what the
people want. They're late.
I've got, I've had partners cometo me, a beverage company came
to me, a multibillion dollar beverage company to try to like
chase the product that someone else is doing, which means in a
year we're going to be on the shelves next to them.
And I knew, I predicted this. I knew that they would be
already out and I wanted to do something else and battled with
(08:34):
my partner. I was like, I want to chase the
market. I know what I want to do.
And the person who ended up doing what I wanted to do sold
it for like 60 to $100 million fast.
So I like the ideas that come from within for the most part
because I don't like to listen to like, data and research about
what women are going to want. And that's this week's fan
favorite. To see more popular videos, go
to ouryoutubechannel@youtube.com/graham
(08:55):
Bensinger.
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