Christabel Duah
Just when the dust was thought to have settled in Bethenny Frankel’s divorce case, the reality star is heading back to court to battle her ex.
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The RHONY cast member reopened her divorce case against Jason Hoppy in order to sue him for custody of their daughter Bryn, 7.
According to Page Six, the embattled pair has been in and out of court dealing with their volatile relationship. In January, Hoppy was arrested for popping up at their daughter’s school. According to an NYPD spokesman, the 47-year-old threatened his ex-wife, reportedly saying, “I will destroy you. You can get all the lawyers you want. You’ve been warned.”
Hoppy had previously been charged with aggravated harassment and stalking Frankel “numerous times via email and FaceTime” in addition to “making verbal threats.”
Frankel, 47, married the pharmaceutical executive in 2010 before the pair separated in December 2012. Their bitter divorce was not finalized for another four years, after which the “Shark Tank” panelist was granted a six-month-long restraining order against Hoppy following his “stalking” arrest, reported the Daily Mail.
According to Frankel’s complaint, Hoppy had sent nearly 200 emails in less than three months, once allegedly writing, “I’ll never go away.”
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Barry Zone alleged that Hoppy’s reported harassment amounted to abuse.
“These acts of mental and psychological abuse are domestic violence, pure and simple. No woman, celebrity or not, deserves to have their allegations of such abuse taken lightly, and we are grateful to the NYPD for their immediate action to protect Ms. Frankel,” Zone said in a statement to the Daily Mail during the proceedings.
Hoppy denied all the allegations against him, and at the time, agreed in court to co-parent Bryn.
The drama with her former spouse may have been responsible for her brief split from businessman boyfriend Dennis Shields, with whom she’s since reunited.
“I rightfully ended the relationship because of some of the circumstances surrounding my divorce and surrounding his divorce,” she continued. “A person that’s been married that many years needs to go through a certain cycle. I think that I needed him to make changes that I really didn’t think he would make. And I think that thinking the possibility of losing me really scared him straight, to be honest.”
