“RHOBH” Newbie Amanda Frances Clears Up Everything: Her Business, the Cult and Those 10K Crystals (Exclusive)
“RHOBH” Newbie Amanda Frances Clears Up Everything: Her Business, the Cult and Those 10K Crystals (Exclusive)
Liza EsquibiasTue, March 3, 2026 at 2:10 PM UTC
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Amanda Frances on 'Watch What Happens Live!'Credit: Charles Sykes/Bravo via Getty -
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Amanda Frances discusses her upbringing, building a business and why she feels "misunderstood" by The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast
Frances joined the franchise for season 15 and has stirred up conversation after revealing she sells online courses on manifestation for a living
She also opens up about her past experience in a cult and who from the show she is on good terms with today
Amanda Frances says she’s living her best life, and she doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about it.
As Frances made her debut on season 15 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, viewers have watched the self-proclaimed “Money Queen” struggle to find her footing in the group. Now, Frances is clearing the air in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE and is answering every burning question — from breaking down how she built a successful business to opening up about her time in a cult, nothing is off limits.
“[The women are] like, ‘How could you possibly make money teaching people about mindset and energetics and self-help and you apply these spiritual things to business? Who makes money that way?’” she says. “Well, like a lot of f---ing people: Tony Robbins and Gabby Bernstein. We could make a huge list of people. I didn't invent self-help.”
Amanda Frances for 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills'Credit: Phylicia J. L. Munn/Bravo
While Frances admits that she “never” saw herself staying in her small hometown of Sand Springs, Okla., she didn’t have many opportunities to escape it. She reveals her family often needed to save money, so her mom would bathe all the kids in the same bath water or have them make their own Lunchables "by cutting Kraft cheese into little squares" because they couldn't afford to buy the name snack kit.
“If you always grew up with some amount of privilege and some amount of wealth around you, you don't know that when you're growing up in an environment without that, it almost feels unavailable — it almost feels impossible,” she says. “In the world I grew up in, the vast majority of the time, the vibe was just, ‘It is what it is. This is how life works.’ There wasn't a lot of talk about questioning it or breaking out of it.”
When she joined RHOBH, Frances’ source of income became a hot topic among the ladies, who questioned how she made money by selling online courses about manifesting money. She insists that they are “misunderstanding her," and adds, “I don't think it's that confusing."
(l-r) Sutton Stracke, Rachel Zoe, Bozoma Saint John, Erika Jayne, Dorit Kemsley, Kyle Richards, Amanda FrancesCredit: Phylicia J. L. Munn/Bravo
“If I were to break it down just real simply, I self-published my book. I had great success, so I created a course called ‘Self-Published,’” she says of Rich As F*ck: More Money Than You Know What to Do With, which she released in 2021. “I made a few million dollars selling digital courses online, so I created a course called ‘Sell From Your Soul’ on how to sell. I have a course called ‘Course Creation Queen.’”
“Essentially, every time I was doing something well, I was like, where can I put that in my body of work to help people?” she continues, explaining that she also leads a mentorship group called a “Mastermind,” which consists of 12 entrepreneurs that she offers advice to as they grow their businesses.
Frances describes her work as “a fresh approach” to finances that is “mental health-informed and mindset-informed and emotional well-being-informed." While she acknowledges that “not everyone likes a spiritual and energetic approach to money and business,” she says that many people do.
Amanda FrancesCredit: Rachpoot/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
“The principles for releasing a limiting belief or working through a false perception are the same whether we're talking about money or anything else,” she claims. “And as I was conquering that for myself, I had a lot to say.”
“I get people to question everything they've been told about how life works and money works and what's possible for them," adds Frances, who previously worked as a life coach for many years. "I think there are people making it out to be like, I teach them weird, wishy-washy magical thinking. But I'm a trauma-informed therapist.”
As a child, Frances says she has "always been fascinated by spirituality and religion" despite her family not practicing one, and she even decided to attend church twice a week when she was 9. She went on to earn two Bible school degrees and a Master's in counseling before traveling to Bali, Indonesia, to deepen her studies of Buddhism and Hinduism.
“When I learned more about energy and more about mindset through my own studies and getting my Master's, it just informed what I'd always known from religion. It just made everything make more sense," she says.
Amanda Frances, Erika Jayne on 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills'Credit: Griffin Nagel/Bravo via Getty
She later enrolled in a PhD program, and although she didn't finish it, Frances says it showed her that “everything I know and believe we can also back by neuroscience.”
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“You can call it manifestation and make it woo-woo, and it is, but we can also prove it in so many ways, whether we're talking about science or looking at the fact that every religion and philosophy ever has talked about these principles,” she explains, revealing her casting on RHOBH was a result of manifestation after she told friends the year prior that she felt she was “meant to be on TV.”
“Who with an online presence that wants to get their work to more people would say no to Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?” she says.
Much of the criticism since the show premiered has been aimed at Frances' sensitivity and how she handles conflict. She says she is a "calm, peaceful person," and she questions whether being “emotionally regulated” was “triggering” for some of her costars.
“They'd be fighting, and I'd be like, ‘Do I have anything meaningful to say here?’ And also, ‘Do I have anything meaningful to say that they can receive?’” she explains. “Because I'm not in the environment I'm used to, where everyone in my world is so into personal development, and we're all wanting to learn and grow from one another. So it's like, if it's going to fall on deaf ears, should I even open my mouth right now? So I don't think they liked that.”
Amanda Frances on 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills'Credit: Griffin Nagel/Bravo via Getty
One topic that came up was Frances’ past in a cult, which she has been publicly open about online. However, she says she was taken aback by the “jarring” way it was brought up during an argument at a group dinner, which is why she kept her guard up in that moment.
“The weird thing about that to me wasn't that it came up — it comes up all the time, I've written four blogs about it and two articles,” Frances says. “I've talked about this for years. It's the intro to my new book. In the beginning of the book, I'm leaving the cult and I'm going on this whole journey around, what do I believe about God? All these things. So it's an interesting part of my life. It's a topic of interest for me. It's something I'm always open to talking about. What was weird was it wasn't like, ‘Hey, Amanda, this is so interesting. Tell me more.’ It was like they were coming at it like it was dirt instead of like it was something that I've always talked about for 18 years.”
“It felt like, ‘We are determined to dig up dirt on you, and then when there's no dirt to be found, we're just going to not believe anything you say,’” she adds. “It was a very interesting approach to getting to know a new friend.”
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Frances claims the women's "approach to conversations" with her "continued to baffle me." She says she made attempts to “relate” to them by talking about material items, such as when she revealed that she once spent $10,000 on crystals in one shopping trip, but many interpreted that as “braggy.”
“I mean, if we were doing that, I could have talked about my $60,000 bracelet or something,” she says with a laugh. “That's not even what we were doing. Everyone was looking at crystals, the price on the bottom of the crystals. When I bought my house in West Hollywood, it was right before the pandemic hit, and a crystal shop in Santa Monica was like, ‘We love your work, come buy crystals.’ I went and I filled my house with crystals, and I spent $10,000. It was such a fun moment, and I was more reflecting on that, because I still have all those crystals.”
“I have normalized — and I think all my friends are this way — talking about money,” Frances adds. “We all talk about money a lot, and we all are proud of each other and encourage each other. It would be like, ‘Go girl,’ if someone spent a lot of money on crystals or anything. Like, good on you for being able to do that for yourself. So it was weird to me that it became such a thing.”
While it affected her at the beginning, Frances shares that she became less phased by the dynamic of the Housewives as she spent more time on the show, and she is now on good terms with several of her fellow cast members, including Kyle Richards, Sutton Stracke, Jennifer Tilly and Kathy Hilton. As for those who continue to criticize her, Frances is embracing it.
“I'm so proud to be new money,” she says. “I can't think of anything better than being new money. It means you made your own money. It means you turned your life around. Would you rather be new money or anciently broke?”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 15 continues with new episodes on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo. Episodes are available to stream the next day on Peacock.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
