Real Housewives star Bethenny Frankel said that comedian Jerry Seinfeld was “wrong” to “pretend” that New York City isn’t riddled with crime.
Frankel made the commentary during an appearance on comedians Dana Carvey and David Spade’s Superfly podcast, while they discussed the evolution of crime in the New York City.
“Some guy wrote an article during the pandemic about crime, Seinfeld pushed back on it,” she said about the comedian’s 2020 op-ed “So You Think New York is ‘Dead.’”
“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.”
Bethenny Frankel describes getting ‘punched in the face’ in ‘wild’ NYC attack. pic.twitter.com/jTBDo2VbJb
— Page Six (@PageSix) March 29, 2024
Spade remarked that there’s “no real crime and punishment” in the city anymore, which he believes is fueling spiking crime rates.
“Jerry Seinfeld, I hate to say, ’cause I love him and I know you guys love him, but he was wrong,” Frankel added.
Carvey pointed out that he lived in NYC during the early eighties when crime was extremely high, but came back after Rudy Giuliani’s term as mayor ended in 2001 and found the city to be inconceivably safer.
“The Giuliani [era] was the not f**king around crew,” Frankel remarked. “When you’re dealing with a jungle like New York and it was left unguarded during the pandemic … the inmates are running the asylum.”
She noted that pharmacies like CVS are locking up personal care items, which is “bad for business,” because “anybody can steal anything they want,” under lax shoplifting laws.
Frankel also spoke about becoming the victim of the random punch attacks that are plaguing the women of New York City.
The Bravo star explained that she was touring a neighborhood that she was contemplating moving to when she was assaulted while walking out of a deli.
Legendary Comedians Dana Carvey & David Spade DESTROY Dr. Fauci. 🤣
This is comedy.
I needed this.
You do too: pic.twitter.com/rPc5jY6USk— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 28, 2023
“I turned around and a guy, just as I was walking out the door, just whacked me in the face,” she explained.
Frankel said that her “Albanian tough-guy” driver stepped in to protect her from the man, who she believed to be homeless and “not well,” so she did not report the attack to the police.
Both Spade and the reality star agreed that New York City’s crime has gotten “exponentially worse” since the pandemic.
On her own podcast, Just B, she said that the city has “taken a real beating,” in the last few years.
“I was talking today to my publicist and her friend knew someone who was held at gunpoint at Dunkin’ Donuts,” she told her listeners.
“My daughter’s friend was held up at gunpoint at Dunkin’ Donuts, coincidentally. My same friend knew someone who got hit in the face with a brick by a homeless person in New York City.”
Frankel said it freaks her out to think about her 14-year-old daughter “walking up and down the aisles of CVS and thinking life is normal,” when crime is so rampant, and has made an effort to explain how dangerous the world is.
“My daughter, anywhere she is, [I’m like,] ‘Wait a minute, how’d you get there? What time is it? Was it dark? Wait a minute.’ I send her every story to the point where I’m annoying. You don’t want to scare your kids. You don’t want to freak them out,” she stated, noting that her daughter is armed with pepper spray and an alarm.
“What do I do? Scare my kid, freak her out. I’m choosing fear. I want to instill fear in her because my alternative is pain and death and crime,” Frankel noted.
“This is what we’re dealing with. The choices for my daughter are ‘instill fear’ or ‘she’s walking through the streets of Manhattan thinking everything’s normal.’”