Amanda Frances Just Wants To Make Friends

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills filmed its Season 15 reunion on March 13 — a date that happened to fall on the 15th anniversary of Amanda Frances’s business. “I was thinking there’d be some positive karma or energy with it being on that day,” she tells me over Zoom. Instead, it ended exactly how her season did: messy, confusing, and far from the supportive, women-centered world she’s built her career on. “And that’s really indicative of my whole experience, right?” she says.

As the show’s newest cast member, it wasn’t surprising that Frances didn’t have an easy time with the other women. But she genuinely went in expecting to make some friends. “I guess that’s the most naive moment I had,” she says. “My whole life is me celebrating my friends and entrepreneurial women and my clients and myself. It just made the show such a juxtaposition.”

Frances, 41, a manifestation-focused entrepreneur and author, experienced quite the opposite in her debut season, beginning with her squabble with Dorit Kemsley — drama that became one of the show’s biggest storylines, all because of a side comment she made about how Kemsley spoke about her ex-husband — and devolving into castmates bringing up dirt on the cult she had fled and Frances fielding digs comparing her to Pinocchio. She tried to combat it all with rational calmness — a strategy that, much to her dismay, the other women tore to shreds. As Sutton said to her in exasperation: “You can’t be such a wimp. Come on!”

The Dorit of it all still confounds her, by the way. “They took that moment where I said two things in support of Dorit and then one that’s like, ‘She probably shouldn’t talk bad about the father of her children,’ which wasn’t really against her,” says Frances. “When Dorit brings it up at Rachel’s, you see me try to wrap my head around it.” At the next group dinner that aired, Frances used the word “accosted” when Kemsley confronted her about what she had said. “People will probably never let me live that down,” says Frances, who had tried to quash things. “If I’m in a conflict, the intention is to resolve it, and that’s not what [Dorit] wanted,” she says. “That’s very confusing to me.”

That’s not to say she got to the other side of that new-cast-member wringer with nothing to show for it. She maintains a friendly relationship with Kyle Richards, Jennifer Tilly, and Kathy Hilton — the latter of whom has quietly become something of a mentor. “I was at Kathy’s house a few weeks ago, and we had a delightful time,” says Frances. “We talked about the show and life and handling scrutiny. I mean, think of what she’s seen her daughters go through. She’s very willing to be a friend and a girl’s girl.”

Below, Frances opens up about what’s on her Notes app, crying during a Disney movie, and how being on Real Housewives has affected her business.

Fast Follow With Amanda Frances

What is the weirdest internet rabbit hole you’ve gone down?

Oh my God, this one’s so stupid. I don’t even know the names of the people. Someone I know had posted that this guy had died, and his wife was really beautiful. And I googled the wife, and she was the third wife. Then I clicked on a link that led me to a Reddit thread about who owned [their family’s] trust and where the money came from and the family’s 19 grandchildren. It only took 20 minutes of my life, but I eventually was like, “Amanda, you have stuff to do.”

I just got so curious, because as you know from my career, I find wealth and how people treat it fascinating. It was piquing my special interest.

What were your last three Google searches?

OK, “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 15 reunion looks.” I was trying to see if they have been released because I don’t think I’m supposed to share mine until Bravo shares with the world. And then, “tape diagram.” I was volunteering and taught math to second graders yesterday in Shoshana’s class. We needed to show our work for one of the problems with a tape diagram, and I didn’t know what that was. And then, “berry pavlova.” I’m throwing a manifestation dinner on Saturday, and I was trying to figure out desserts, and ChatGPT suggested a berry pavlova.

What is something or someone you’re always defending?

Women. I feel like I eat, sleep, live, and breathe female empowerment and financial empowerment, and I always have. It’s very disheartening to me that, because there’s a spiritual and energetic component to it, it’s all being reduced down to manifesting money.

If you look at my work, there’s so much psychology and human behavior and neuroscience and metacognition behind it. I have really woven some beautiful concepts into teaching manifestation, and I do not like the way the Housewife rhetoric has reduced it down to, “She tells people she can help them manifest money.”

What TV show or movie do you aggressively recommend to everyone?

Gilmore Girls. I watch it once a year. It takes me a year to get through, but it’s my favorite show. I’ve related to Lorelei my whole life as the black sheep who has to get away and do things her own way. Then I got older and related to Emily a little bit. But I’m definitely also the Rory overachiever. And everyone on that show is an entrepreneur, which really speaks to me.

It’s such a classic. What is the weirdest thing you’ve cried at in a movie or on TV?

Oh, I’m such a crier. I will cry anytime a character we’re watching steps into their destiny. I was on an airplane on the way back from Sardinia in September, and I was showing my son Lilo & Stitch, which I had never seen. There’s a part where the older sister is in the water, and she had been doing some kind of training throughout her life, and she needed to do that motion to save her sibling. It was the thing she had prepared for her whole life, not even knowing what it was preparing her for. And I deeply believe that’s how life works, so I bawled my eyes out.

What song have you had on repeat lately?

There’s a song called “God Bless the Mean Girls.” It’s by KATSEYE, a Korean band my 8-year-old son got me into. Quote me on that — it speaks volumes.

What is something that you ate so much of that you eventually got sick of it?

In my early 20s I ate a spinach salad with strawberries every day of my life, and I think I’d rather die than have a spinach salad with strawberries.

What’s a topic you could give a full PowerPoint presentation on with zero prep?

Our relationship with money. I do it all the time. In fact, I had a co-teacher have a scheduling issue and not show up for a module in one of my courses last week. And I just sat down and taught for an hour on self-publishing.

What is your most used phrase or saying right now?

When it’s a good thing, “It’s a vibe,” or, “That’s a moment.” When it’s not a great thing, “It’s a situation.”

Has your business grown since joining The Real Housewives?

Yes. Book sales are insane. If you go check almost any day of the week, I’m number one in women in business, which is a great category to continually be number one in. And what we’re seeing in the past couple of months is a lot of new people — Bravo people included — checking out a $5 offer, an $11 offer, a pay-what-you-feel offer [to preview entry-level money-manifesting trainings]. Of course, I’ll love it if some of these people end up in a $2,000 course. But my bigger intention is to bring these principles to the general population. So I love when people buy a $5 offer because it’s accessible, and it has the potential to introduce them to things that are really helpful to them. That makes me feel like I’m really getting the assignment of the show right, despite all this stuff.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.