Bethenny Frankel Keeps Boyfriend Michael Cerussi Off The Air On 'Real Housewives of New York'

NYDailyNews.com:

Bethenny Frankel has learned her lesson when it comes to men. Confidenti@l found out that the Skinnygirl mogul will keep her boyfriend Michael “Mac” Cerussi off “The Real Housewives of New York” because she’s worried the fame could “create a monster.”

We’re told Frankel, coming back to the show after a four-year hiatus, feels her estranged husband Jason Hoppy was changed by the exposure he got in the Bravo series that followed their relationship. She doesn’t want Cerussi to follow the same path.

So although their year-long relationship has become serious enough for her businessman beau to sell his Midtown apartment and move closer to her Tribeca pad, says the source, she’s keeping his profile low for the good of the relationship.

“She doesn’t even put pictures of him on social media, which is interesting because they’ve been together for a year now,” said the insider.

“There’s some talk that Mac likes the attention and she’s worried to create a monster out of him if he gets famous,” explained the gossip. “She knows that that happened with Jason. That’s one point that's a little touchy.” “

He has so much money, he dates so many girls (before their relationship), and the one thing he gets with her that he didn’t get before is exposure,” said the source. “He’d joke around that he’s so annoyed that such-and-such a magazine published photos of them on the beach or whatever, but then at the same time he loved it.”

Pharmaceutical salesman Hoppy, who has been locked in a divorce battle with Frankel since January 2013, starred with her in “Bethenny Getting Married?” which followed their engagement and its follow up “Bethenny Ever After.” During the court proceedings both parents accused the other of being “fame hungry.”

A Radar Online report earlier this week suggested Cerussi’s absence from the show, which is already filming, was because Frankel doesn’t want their relationship to provide Hoppy’s lawyers with any legal ammunition. But we’re told that’s only part of the story. Their daughter Brynn is another issue. “

Jason doesn’t want Mac to be around the kid at all, and he is,” said the insider. “They go to lunch all the time, they go to the movies together. He’s with the kid all the time. He had an apartment in Midtown for a number of years and he sold it, and either bought or is renting a new one downtown closer to (Frankel and her daughter), so things are definitely serious between them.”

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