Bethenny Frankel: I went from a 'Real Housewife' to a credible businesswoman. It took me a while to realize my success wasn't a fluke.

• Bethenny Frankel's TikToks have become her new bread and butter, garnering 1 million followers.
• She says her TikTok and podcasts are her main passions right now.
• Frankel explains why she feels her videos resonate and what she's learned along the way.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Bethenny Frankel. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I used to joke and say I'm a beauty influencer. And then all of a sudden it became true.

I'm a podcast personality, social media influencer, philanthropist and motivational speaker. I'm also a mom.

It was a journey to get the business credibility I have now

I first felt like I made it, in terms of being acknowledged for my accomplishments in business, when I was on the cover of Forbes. That was credibility. Before the Forbes cover, I felt like no one took me seriously. After it came out, I showed that I was a business force and a brand. 

My success even influenced the way reality television and business worked from that point on — the "Bethenny clause" was born, where networks wanted a monetary piece of the talents' action.  

It took a while for me to realize that my success wasn't a fluke and that I wasn't a one hit wonder. It was incomprehensible to me that I was financially secure and didn't need to worry — it took a long time for me to use a mini-bar or get anything above the cheapest hotel room. 

Now that I've proven myself in business, I'm actually ready to switch gears. My new focus is to use my platforms to talk about the things I care about — the beauty industry, my life, and my truth. To that end, my podcasts and my TikTok have become my new focuses.

My life-goals have changed

I could be doing "Housewives" for millions of dollars. I could have maintained my HSN presence — but my goal isn't to be a billionaire. It's to have quality time to spend with my daughter, and to do the things that make me happy. 

And what makes me happy right now is talking to my followers and podcast listeners. I don't want to just talk about going into Hermès and buying a bag I can afford. I also want to talk about going to CVS to buy lip gloss. 

TikTok has become a great vehicle for that. 

My TikTok following was completely accidental 

Talking about the beauty industry on TikTik, mostly at home in pajamas with no makeup on, propelled me into the beauty space — which is funny because I didn't know anything about it really at the time. 

When I first started doing makeup reviews on TikTok, I didn't even know how to do my own makeup. The primary thing I believe people really related to in my videos was that I was honest about not knowing what I was talking about. 

I started doing makeup reviews by basically saying "Don't believe all the hype about this more expensive product. You're just being marketed to and ripped off. This is what the product's really like and how it compares to others."

Now I've become a credible voice in beauty, which I didn't even realize starting out was such a lucrative, topical space.

A lot of people think I talk about the beauty industry in my TikToks because I have a beauty line coming — but I have no plans to enter the beauty space. I know some find it hard to believe, but I'm not selling my audience anything on TikTok. I'm just speaking to them.

My videos resonate because people are looking for truth in their content

I didn't realize that there had been such a void for honesty with these kinds of products and that people felt they had been lied to or talked down to in the advertising of them. My videos provided what people felt was lacking — transparency.

Whether I'm talking about the Kardashians' filtering or Meghan Markle and how her experience somehow makes her an expert on speaking engagements —  people just want the truth right now. They're not interested in BS.

I'm watching all over the internet, people calling out the Kardashians for all the plastic surgery. There's a sound on TikTok where Kim's saying, "I gotta be real with you guys. You look like fucking clowns." And it's true, they all look like clowns now.

People are noticing because we've all been drinking the same bullshit and making them billionaires. I think they should take the money they made and go — and take their toxic messaging with them.

As a mother, I think accountability is what I'm talking about, because these toxic messages are being sent to my daughter. I woke a lot of moms on TikTok up to ask themselves, "Why am I okay with seeing these messages every day?" Then they unfollow people like that — they don't want to look at it anymore. 

There's a big community that's here for nonsense, but there's also a big community who's not. So I'm speaking to that community. That's my group. 

I'm free to speak to them because I'm not shooting every day on "Real Housewives," sitting in hair and makeup and talking to other cast members.

What I want people to understand is — you can be successful and be truthful

Truth is good business. Look at Amy Schumer, Gayle King or Andy Cohen. I talk about this in my book "Business is Personal." 

An example of what I mean — I can launch vitamin gummies coming out soon and admit that I know that vitamin gummies are half bullshit and half candy. But I usually don't take vitamins at all. So it works to be truthful and say, well I'd rather take half bullshit than nothing at all.

I don't need to lie to everybody and say gummies only taste like candy. I can just tell them it's better than taking a horse pill made of wheatgrass. I don't want to take a horse pill — and neither do a lot of people, so in that way, I'm able to make truth my selling point. That's my secret sauce.

I've made mistakes and messaged things improperly, as many of us have

People are in a different place now than they were two years ago, with what they want to hear and talk about. Things I wanted to say that may have been too early or wrong to say two years ago might be okay to say now. 

I'm still finding a way to be honest about everything I'm doing. I may not always know what the hell I'm talking about, but we're going to figure it out together.

Editor's note: Frankel has filed a class-action lawsuit against TikTok over ads she claims used her images and videos to sell counterfeit products on the app.

If you work in Hollywood and would like to share your story, email Eboni Boykin-Patterson at eboykinpatterson@insider.com.