Last year, there were numerous reports about Bethenny Frankel threatening to quit Real Housewives of New York during filming. Press outlets stated it was due to the fact that she and Carole Radziwill, her former on-camera comrade, were not getting along. Allegedly, Bethenny was at her wit’s end, devastated by the whole debacle.

Ultimately, we saw how the demise of that friendship played out. It went from tentatively terse to flat-out terrible. While Bethenny seemed to tantrum rather than ice out her friend (Carole was the one to act too cool for school), Carole is now speaking out bitterly via Twitter when there’s really no need to. Unlike Bethenny, she’s not coming back to RHONY next season.

Which brings us to the point of Bethenny returning. Several seasons ago, RHONY fans expressed frustrations with the Skinny Girl when she didn’t show up to filmed parties and other events captured by cameras.

“So, Bethenny can just dial it in this season?” one recapper lamented to me at the time.

Since Bethenny was considered the Queen Bee with the clever quips that kept the franchise feisty, she was still contributing to the storyline even as it seemed unfair that she could bow out of events at her choosing. That season and this past one – when she was a no-show at Ramona’s skincare line party – she telepathically conveyed to the audience: I’m too good for this. I’m a REAL businesswoman, not a “Real Housewife.”

One friend told me she completely understands Bethenny’s stance: “She’s the only one who really had to pull herself up by the bootstraps, work hard and acquire her wealth all on her own. There was no rich husband. She didn’t have a dime from her parents because they are estranged. Bethenny, therefore, cannot relate to all the other women on this show.”

Although at times it seems Bethenny really doesn’t want to be there at all, this show has given her a platform to promote her products and the visibility of her brand. Overall, she does have many hardcore fans who will defend her to the death (it’s reality TV, but this is only slight hyperbole). Her one-liners are always original and off-the-cuff, and when she’s in the wrong, she knows how to play her cards right, garnering sympathy and armed with defense tactics.

At this past reunion, host Andy Cohen hardly seemed the fair arbitrator with fans crying “Bethenny bias”, and Bethenny stans firmly on her side, deeming Carole Radziwill to be the devil.

Bethenny looked pained and severely constipated (in fact, she had talked about the latter in Colombia on the cast trip) throughout the season – again, a season during which she had reportedly threatened to quit the show altogether. However, she appeared confident at the reunion, vicious even and ready to tear Carole apart. She seemed to take a deep breath of fresh air in vindication and while Carole could have creamed her with a barrage of receipts, complaints and having other ladies on her side, Bethenny shouted the loudest, stood her ground and with Andy Cohen clearly in her corner, she appeared triumphant at the end.

Bethenny Frankel has a love-hate relationship with reality television, specifically with RHONY and with fame overall. What makes her most miserable is what she is inspired to confront…again and again. Walking away is not an option. The successful businesswoman didn’t make a name for herself by being a quitter.

When it comes to Bravo, she is either a glutton for punishment or a genius who feels that all risks – and all hassles, like business parties so “beneath her” that she’ll decline without hesitation- are worth the ultimate rewards. She is smart and shrewd enough to know what those rewards are, and furthermore, what they could be, and see that she gets them at the end of the RHONY journey.