Shoe Gate 2026 - "Bethenny Frankel Is a Weirdo" And We’re Questioning The Expectations Of Influencers

Hey Lifers!
Have we been scammed by Meta? Britt is trying to learn Italian but she’s faced some hurdles! We talk about Meta ad scams and the great bot clear out of 2026.

Laura shares a story about… how do we encapsulate this?? a reformer Pilates machine, a spread eagle and someone who shouldn’t have been there to see it.

We also talk about a new phase of parenting that Laura has entered: her kids have worked out how to play Matt and Laura off against each other. How do you get back on the same page when your kids have found the gap?

Shoe Gate 2026.
An influencer fight that none of us should care about as much as we do.
Here's the timeline:

• Female founder Lexi Ioannou (daughter of Real Housewives' Dina Manzo) sent a pair of shoes from her brand Nou to Bethenny Frankel.
• Bethenny wore them multiple times but never tagged the brand.
• However, when a follower directly asked where the shoes were from, Bethenny linked an affiliate dupe instead.
• Lexi posted a now-viral callout video.
• Bethenny said that she did this because the shoes were sold out and that would annoy her followers, and that Lexi has played the ‘short game’ and has some business lessons to learn.

We unpack both sides: the value of celebrity endorsement even without a tag, whether the exchange is ‘fair’, whether the affiliate link is the villain, and what it means when a small female-founded brand watches their product get replaced with a paid link.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - Britt's in Italy and may have been scammed by a language app

9:16 Laura's nanny situation and the thing she shouldn’t have seen

16:00 New parenting phase: the kids are playing mum and dad off against each other

25:19 Shoe Gate 2026: Bethenny Frankel, Lexi Ioannou and the affiliate dupe

49:46 Suck and sweet of the week

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Hosted by Britt Hockley & Laura Byrne

Hosted by Britt Hockley & Keeshia Pettit

Video Produced by Vanessa Beckford & Lachy Pugsley

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