Bethenny Frankel Speaks out Against NYC Crime Following Alleged Random Assault

Bethenny Frankel arrives at the Emmy For Your Consideration Event for Showtime's 'Shameless' at Linwood Dunn Theater in Los Angeles, Calif., on May 24, 2018. Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images

Television personality Bethenny Frankel, who rose to fame on Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of New York City,” has criticized the Big Apple’s post-pandemic crime wave, recalling once being hit in the face by a homeless man while apartment hunting in NYC earlier this year.

During a recent episode of the “Superfly“ podcast, aired April 5, the 53-year-old businesswoman recounted the random attack, which she said occurred at a local bakery on the Upper West Side.

“I walked in, and it was this tiny place that had all these different kinds of desserts that I was interested in,” she shared. “I took my phone out to take a picture of them, and I turned around and a guy just—as I was walking out the door—just whacked me in the face.”

Ms. Frankel said she immediately went outside where her driver, “an Albanian tough guy” who also served as her security guard, was waiting, intimating to him that something had transpired with the vagrant.

“When I walked out, I made eye contact with [the driver], like, ’something went down with this guy,' and he came over and they had words,” she said. “The guy was homeless and he seemed, um, unwell. I mean, he just seemed unhinged and unwell.”

Previously a resident of NYC, Ms. Frankel sold her Manhattan loft in early 2022, relocating to homes in The Hamptons, situated on the eastern end of Long Island’s southern fork, and Connecticut, per Bravo.

However, as she described in a March 28 TikTok video detailing the physical assault, the incident ultimately swayed her decision not to move back. In the clip, the Skinnygirl brand founder said the attack left her feeling “completely stunned.”

“And at that point, I texted the broker and said, ‘I don’t want to see apartments anymore; this city’s insane,’” the entrepreneur recalled.

Random Attacks

Ms. Frankel is among a slew of women who have taken to social media in recent weeks claiming to have been hit in the face by random strangers on the streets of NYC.

Just three days before the reality star shared her testimony online, Halley Kate, a 24-year-old TikTok influencer based in NYC, published a clip to the platform after she was allegedly attacked in Chelsea, located on the West Side of Manhattan.

“You guys, I was literally just walking and a man came up and punched me in the face. Oh my god, it hurts so bad I can’t even talk. Literally, I fell to the ground and now this giant goose egg is forming,” she said, revealing a large bump on her forehead.

CBS News reported that Skiboky Stora, 40, was arrested two days later in connection with the assault, which was recorded on nearby surveillance video. However, police were still investigating a string of similar attacks that occurred in other parts of Manhattan, including the West Village and Midtown.

‘Feeling of Desperation’ in NYC

While speaking to the co-hosts of “Superfly,” Dana Carvey and David Spade, who both previously lived in New York, Ms. Frankel explained her reasoning for not calling the police on the homeless man who allegedly hit her.

“[T]here’s a version of compassion; there’s a version of intellectual understanding that the pandemic drove a lot of us—who were sitting home and who are not broke—crazy,” she explained, adding that there’s a “feeling of desperation” in NYC.

“And you can, like, it’s palpable ... the mental illness thing, and you’re seeing it in other cities, too. I saw it when I was in LA, San Francisco is a, you know, a wild town now, so it’s this, it is this post-pandemic thing,” she continued.

In addition to the random punching attacks, a spate of other high-profile crimes have dogged NYC as of late.

On March 31, Broadway actor John Cardoza was allegedly robbed by a panhandler inside a Dunkin' location in Upper Manhattan. No arrests were immediately made and the investigation remains ongoing.

Hours later, “Boardwalk Empire” star Michael Stuhlbarg was struck in the head by a rock thrown by a homeless man as he was walking through the borough’s Central Park. The suspect, later identified as 27-year-old Xavier Israel, was arrested and charged with assault.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has insisted that NYC is “the safest big city in America,” a sentiment he shared in a March 6 post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The city reported drops in crimes during the first quarter of 2024. In March, the number of robberies, grand larceny offenses, and felony assaults decreased by 51.9 percent, 15.2 percent, and 10.9 percent, respectively, compared to the same month the previous year, per a press release.

However, Ms. Frankel told Mr. Carvey and Mr. Spade that crime in NYC still “feels really bad.”

“It’s been a discussion and there’s been a defensiveness about it, because New Yorkers wanna gaslight and pretend it’s not actually happening and close their eyes and pretend they’re not seeing it,” she said.