Following the drama that ensued after Kanye West released a song with Sean “Diddy” Combs featuring his and Kim Kardashian’s daughter North, Bethenny Frankel weighed in on the situation.
“My advice to Kim Kardashian as someone who’s been through a horrific, decade long divorce on a two year marriage and got primary custody and no child support that I had to pay,” Frankel, 54, shared in an Instagram video on Sunday, March 16. “So here’s the deal, the media is focused on the trademark like who owns the trademark of North West because she’s been featured on a Kanye, Diddy song, which is alarming.”
Frankel, who divorced Jason Hoppy in 2013, went on to explain that Kardashian, 44, is texting West, 47, “as if he’s a rational person,” referring to alleged text messages between the two exes shared online by West.
“She should not be speaking to him at all. She should be speaking to him by proxy,” the former Real Housewives of New York star said. “Someone else should be the one interacting with him because, again, he’s not rational. He’s sharing her texts, and that’s a violation.”
After West dropped “Lonely Roads Still Go to Sunshine” featuring North, 11, and Combs, 55, on Saturday, March 15, the alleged text messages revealed that Kardashian seemingly tried to stop the song’s release because of North’s trademarked name. (Kardashian and West divorced in 2021 and share kids North, Saint, 9, Chicago, 7, and Psalm, 5.)
“I asked you at the time if I can trademark her name. You said yes. When she’s 18, it goes to her. So stop,” Kardashian reportedly wrote, according to screenshots shared via TMZ. “I sent paperwork over so she wouldn’t be in the Diddy song to protect her.”
Kardashian allegedly noted that she and West made a deal to trademark all of their kids’ names when they were born, which West replied to “amend it” or he’s “going to war.”
“And neither of us will recover from the public fallout,” West seemingly said in the screenshots. “You’re going to have to kill me.”
In her video, Frankel urged Kardashian not to worry about the trademark and focus on getting legal “decision-making” rights instead.
“God forbid something happens medical with the kids or education or something important, big ticket items, you need a sane rational, non-punitive party to be making those decisions,” the Bravo personality explained. “If Kim has decision making, it’s irrelevant whether or not she has the trademark for her daughter … because a judge doesn’t care about trademarks as much.”
Frankel noted that custody judges are “always focused on what is in the best interest of the child, even if their agreement says something otherwise.”
“In my situation, I moved out of my apartment when I technically wasn’t supposed to because it’s called ‘abandonment,’ but I made that judgment call because of circumstances going on within the house. The judge applauded that,” she added. “In addition, I bought my own home, which you’re not supposed to do because finances haven’t been sorted. But that also was applauded because it gave me a safe space emotionally to be with my child.”
Frankel concluded by saying that “judges are human beings” and they don’t just care about the “letter of the law when it comes to the interest of the child.”
