The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills newcomer Amanda Frances wasted no time in clashing with costar Dorit Kemsley over allegations that Amanda was once in a cult.
The female empowerment coach, who wrote bestselling book Rich as F*ck, made her debut on the Bravo reality show as part of a cast overhaul, which also saw newcomer Natalie Swanston Fuller join as a “friend” of the Housewives in the wake of Garcelle Beauvais’ dramatic exit following the season 14 reunion.
Bozoma Saint John almost immediately called Amanda’s professional credentials into question — and even suggested that her costar might be skilled at “scamming” during a January 2026 appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen.
“What I’m doing [professionally] is not new at all,” Amanda exclusively told Us Weekly’s Getting Real With the Housewives in January 2026. “I don’t know why [the cast] are pretending they can’t wrap their head around it. Some people may be confused, some are absolutely not paying attention when I talk about it and some people are pretending.”
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Viewers also got to see a vulnerable side to Amanda as she opened up about her and fiancé Eddie Tsivislavsky losing their baby son Zion five days after his birth in 2022.
Keep scrolling for more information about Amanda’s tension-filled first season on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, plus more about her backstory.
Amanda Frances and Fiance Eddie Tsivislavsky’s Newborn Son Died in 2022
Many of the most poignant scenes on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 15 have revolved around Amanda Frances and her fiancé, Eddie Tsivislavsky, opening up about losing their newborn son Zion in 2022.
“Three years ago, I had twins, Canaan and Zion,” Amanda told viewers in the January 22, 2026, episode. “[It was] an emergency C-section, middle of the night, born 11 weeks early.”
Amanda explained that “Zion’s placenta was faulty,” which meant that her son was “having a hard time in the womb” throughout her pregnancy.
“Canaan was in the NICU for 68 days. Zion, unfortunately, died in my arms the first time I ever held him,” Amanda tearfully recalled.
As the third anniversary of Zion’s death approached, Eddie confided in Amanda that he still felt their son’s presence. In that same episode, Amanda asked a tarot card reader at Rachel Zoe’s dinner party whether any presence from the other side was trying to contact her.
“Do you feel anything from me right now?” Amanda asked, with the tarot card reader admitting: “I can’t get anything right now. I’m sorry.”
Amanda broke down in tears as she shared, “My 3-year-old’s twin died three years ago today, so I thought this might be a moment where he’d come through a little bit.”
“Eddie’s had these moments where he just feels Zion around him and he feels like Zion is stopping by to say hi,” she explained in a confessional interview. “I don’t have them the same way Eddie does. I’m really wanting to find my version of that.”
Amanda and Eddie also share a daughter, Delilah, as well as his two children, son Liam and daughter Shoshana, from a previous relationship.
Amanda Frances and Dorit Kemsley Had a Dramatic Dinner Party Clash
The climax of the January 22, 2026, RHOBH episode centered around Amanda Frances attending a dinner party at costar Rachel Zoe’s home. The event coincided with the third anniversary of Zion’s death, though the rest of the cast were unaware.
Amanda immediately made waves by questioning why Dorit Kemsley needed a ghostwriter for her upcoming book, Unburdened: A Memoir.
“I just sat down and wrote,” Amanda boasted with a laugh.
RHOBH cut to Erika Jayne’s shady retort in a confessional: “I’m really glad you wrote your book all by yourself. I did not. Dorit definitely will not because it will never come out!”
Before everyone sat down for dinner, Sutton Stracke revealed that Amanda had expressed concern that Dorit may be complicating her divorce from PK Kemsley by airing their grievances on the show. The revelation set up an extremely awkward confrontation at dinner when Dorit asked why Amanda was talking behind her back.
“Can I be really, really honest? Zion died three years ago today and I am holding on by a thread,” Amanda admitted, with a confused Kathy Hilton asking, “Is that your dog?”
“My son,” Amanda corrected Kathy.
RHOBH cut away to confessional interviews where each Housewife insisted they had no idea about the death anniversary. (Viewers saw Amanda telling her costars about Zion’s death in a previous episode, but she seemingly did not mention the anniversary date.)
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Amanda excused herself from the dinner, but not before telling Kathy and Kyle Richards that she felt Dorit owed her an apology. Dorit tried to make amends, though Amanda physically rejected Dorit’s attempt to brush a tear from her eye.
Speaking exclusively to Us Weekly after the episode aired, Amanda confirmed that things were still rocky with Dorit months after they filmed the tense dinner party.
“We don’t recover,” she told Us. “And the thing is, we could have.”
Amanda insisted that the cringeworthy scene “could have been bonding” for herself and Dorit if they’d managed to quickly squash the beef.
“Viewers will see me in future episodes try very hard to just sit down with her and work it out,” Amanda hinted. “The woman was very committed and devoted to only talking to me if it could be a loud dinner table spectacle kind of thing.”
Amanda Frances Is a Female-Empowerment Advocate
The RHOBH newbie describes herself as a “world-renowned thought leader on financial empowerment for women” in her website bio. Aside from writing the bestselling book Rich as F*ck, Amanda Frances teaches online courses about financial planning and hosts the “And She Rises” podcast.
Amanda — who has clarified that she is not a licensed financial advisor — offered some guidance to Dorit Kemsley about her impending divorce from PK Kemsley on RHOBH season 15.
“I think you have to decide what you want, what you’re creating and who you are going to be,” Amanda encouraged Dorit. “I know that’s, like, a big overarching question, but who do you want to be as a provider? Who do you want to be as a woman who earns? … Who are you going to be no matter what he does?”
Fellow RHOBH cast member Bozoma Saint John was not impressed with Amanda’s advice to Dorit.
“What is this frou-frou mess we’re talking about?” Boz complained in a confessional interview. “I was looking for one plus one equals two. Intentions? What kind of provider does she want to be? What does that even mean? This is not financial advice. The math ain’t mathing.”
Speaking to Us Weekly in January 2026, Amanda attempted to set the record straight about her coaching business.
“There’s a lot of online businesses. I create digital courses and online education, and that’s been my world,” Amanda exclusively told Us’ Getting Real With the Housewives in January 2026. “Self-help has always been around and personal development has always been around, and there’s always been people applying mindset principles to many in business.”
Amanda Frances Says She Was in a Cult
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ January 29, 2026, episode included a bombshell revelation during Dorit Kemsley’s conversation with Kyle Richards and Bozoma Saint John. Dorit discovered a 2015 blog where Amanda Frances referenced escaping from a cult and was later shown reciting passages from the blog in her confessional interview.
Amanda opened up about her past experience in a cult during a January 2026 interview with Us Weekly.
“I have two bible school degrees. I have a ministry training degree, and then my bachelor’s degree is also from a religious university,” Amanda explained. “Between ministry training school and bachelor’s, I was, for two years, very highly involved in a church that I consider to be a cult.”
She continued, “It fits all the criteria for a cult. It fits all the criteria for religious abuse. That was what it was for me. That was the experience I had.”
Amanda took exception to the way her background was played for shock value by her RHOBH costars.
“It was never a secret. I’ve written, like, four blogs on the topic, in addition to other articles. The cult story isn’t a secret. Everyone in my audience, in my community, women in my courses, have known this story forever,” she insisted. “So, when she’s pulling it up like it’s dirt, it’s very weird to me. Because it’s not dirt.”
The conflict continued to escalate in subsequent weeks on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills as Dorit told the other ladies during her birthday dinner that Amanda once claimed to have “run away from a cult.”
“I did leave a cult,” Amanda told Dorit. “What does the cult have to do with anything?”
Amanda declined to get into specifics at the time but promised her new friends that she’d explain everything at a later date.
“This woman disrespected me and my son on the anniversary of his death, and now she wants to bring up that I’m in a cult?” Amanda complained in a confessional interview. “She’s just scraping the bottom of the barrel for anything she thinks will make me look bad.”
The touchy subject came up again when Amanda was on a hike with Kyle, where she described herself as “a wealth of information about cults.” Amanda accused Dorit of trying to smear her reputation with cult accusations.
Dorit offered a totally different explanation during a sitdown with Sutton Stracke and Rachel Zoe.
“[Amanda] claims to be very open and transparent,” Dorit said. “There’s something amiss, and I would like to know and understand Amanda. It’s not what you see is what you get.”
On The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills After Show, Amanda assured Kyle that there were “never any secrets” about her experience in a cult — it all just took place “so long ago.”
“What makes a cult a cult is the isolation, the control, the manipulation, the subtle brainwashing,” she pointed out. “A cult is typically marked by control, manipulation, an authority figure leader that cannot be questioned, the fear of leaving. I can say a lot of things about what it was and what it wasn’t, and why it meets the criteria of a cult.”
Amanda confirmed that she was in the process of writing a new book specifically about the cult. She also tossed out some shade about how her cult experience compared to a Real Housewives dinner party.
“There weren’t many dinner parties in the cult, I have to tell you,” she quipped to Kyle. “I should have joined one like that. Maybe next time.”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 15 airs on Bravo Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET. Episodes are available to stream on Peacock the next day.
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