Bethenny saw ‘RHONY’ as a mere transition to help her launch her empire — not as a goal in itself. And she doesn’t miss her old cast mates in the least!

Former The Real Housewives of New York star Bethenny Frankel had a plan to get her own reality show from the very beginning. So when Jill Zarin introduced Bethenny to the producers at Bravo and they asked her to join the cast of RHONY, Bethenny saw this as the opportunity that she needed. “It was definitely a plan,” Bethenny tells HollywoodLife.com exclusively. “It was definitely something I knew was going to happen. I could see it.”

So when Bethenny joined the cast, she made it a point to “separate from the pack” as she puts it in her new book, A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life. “I separated in a sense that Season One — everybody was being frivolous,” Bethenny explains to us. “I was just trying to build a career and I was already working on all the projects.”

“Bravo is very much a network that is known for and relishes big drama, diamonds, glam, money and luxury,” Bethenny says. “I was not that. I had no money, I lived in 700 square-foot apartment. I had no idea what was going on in my life emotionally or career-wise. I separated in the sense that I wasn’t going to pretend I was somebody I wasn’t. I had to separate from the pack and be truthful.”

And when Bethenny found out she was getting her own show, not one of her fellow cast members — Ramona Singer, Alex McCord, Jill, Countess LuAnn de Lesseps or Kelly Bensimon — congratulated her. Were they jealous?

Now, Bethenny’s in the second season of her own show Bethenny Ever After — and she’s happier than ever that she’s no longer a housewife. “I don’t regret not being on that show at all,” she tells us. “I don’t miss a minute of it.”

In Bethenny Ever After, “no one is doing anything violent or outlandish for television,” Bethenny says. “I just love the natural way about this show because it’s true.” Wow!

Quite a jab at her old BFFs!

- Lindsey DiMattina

DOUBLE EXCLUSIVE! Bethenny’s mom responds: ‘I consider her to be demented and beyond help — reconciliation is not up to her at all!’

The mother-daughter feud continues! Ten years ago, Bethenny Ever After star Bethenny Frankel had a major falling out with her mother Bernadette Parisella Birk. To this day, Bethenny has no intention of fixing their relationship. “It depends upon what I want, and I don’t know that I want that,” Bethenny tells HollywoodLife.com exclusively. “My life is kind of the way I want it right now.”

In her new book, A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life, Bethenny’s addresses the issues that emerged from her childhood.

“I didn’t feel like a victim as a child, and I don’t feel like one now,” Bethenny, 40, writes. But “I never felt very safe, and I never felt like I could trust that someone else was in control of the situation.”

“I shouldn’t have been in Vegas at 13,” Bethenny explains to HollywoodLife.com. “I shouldn’t have been in nightclubs at 13.”

We also spoke with Bethenny’s mom — who said that Bethenny just isn’t telling the truth about her past.

“She was NOT in any nightclubs at 13, unless she was crawling out her bedroom window at night,” Bernadette tells us. “But yes, we took her to Vegas with us because we were not going to leave her with a babysitter.”

“We took her all over the world, she wasn’t out of my sight ever,” Bernadette adds.

Bethenny’s take? “My childhood was not terrible,” she admits during our interview. “I had a lot of happiness — or at least a lot of fun times. I did a lot of interesting things’ — but not necessarily at an age that would have been appropriate, she feels.

Bethenny still writes in her book, “I never wanted to hurt her — I wish when this book comes out, she wouldn’t have to see it or know about it.”

But her mom did find out. “If she didn’t want me to read the parts about me in the book then why would she publish it?” Bernadette wonders.

“My comment is the same as it was — I consider her to be demented and beyond help,” Bernadette says. “Reconciliation is not up to her at all. She would never want to repair anything because then all of her lies would come out.”

- Lindsey DiMattina and Jessica Finn

Her new book says your relationships aren’t coincidences — they reveal recurring themes in your life! Bethenny tells you how to decode your own dating game.

Have you gone through a ton of guys and just don’t understand why you haven’t found Mr. Right yet? Well Bethenny Ever After star Bethenny Frankel has some dating advice to share with you in her new book A Place of Yes: 1o Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life. And Bethenny explains to HollywoodLife.com exclusively how to learn from failed relationships.

“It’s a take it or leave it concept,” Bethenny tells us. “Rather than be bitter about old relationships or pine after them, take the good from them and build upon it.”

“If there is something you don’t like, you leave it behind,” says Bethenny. “In the next relationship, you add some new great things.”

Bethenny goes into more depth about this in a chapter entitled “Find Your Truth: How I Finally Met My Match.” “Our relationships are mirrors,” she writes. “Finding your truth by thoughtfully examining your past is the only way to use your truth for better future relationships.”

And once you do find Mr. Right, Bethenny warns not to nit-pick the relationship to death. “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” Bethenny tells us. “Sometimes you don’t need to add or subtract anything. But as women, we can’t help ourselves sometimes.”

“Learn to leave it alone,” she advises. “Don’t overthink what’s good!”

Be sure to pick up your copy of A Place of Yes available now in stores and online!

- Lindsey DiMattina