A Real Housewife Finds a Modern Family: Bethenny Frankel and Eric Stonestreet May Be Dating

Well, I guess we can officially be over “Bennifer” now.

For now we have entered the era of “Ereny,” or “BethStreet,” or—hmm, yes—“Stony.”

According to reports—and, as odd couples go, this pretty much not just takes the biscuit but the whole tin—Eric Stonestreet from Modern Family and Bethenny Frankel are dating.

That’s right: The actor from one of the most successful sitcoms of modern times, who plays the fabulously flaming Cam, has hooked up with the loud-mouthed daytime chat show failure and Skinnygirl tycoon.

Yes, that was the sound of a thousand “Hallelujahs” from the offices of every gossip magazine in the land.

Frankel is on particularly volume-increasing form at the moment, having returned to wreak judgmental, my-way-or-the-highway havoc on fellow cast members of Bravo’s Real Housewives of New York.

She’d left the show to become a big TV star, but that didn’t work out, so it was back to the prime-time, contrived barnyard of drinking, bitching, and crying—aka, We’ve All Got Bills to Pay.

Frankel has a well-honed habit of causing a fight wherever her shadow falls and offering unwelcome advice on everything from alcohol consumption to book titles.

Presumably she thinks the success of Skinnygirl means she is uniquely placed to advise all the other women on their various pursuits.

Fellow Housewife Ramona Singer did turn Frankel down on her screeched raft of book title suggestions/instructions, and has gone for her chosen Life on the Ramona Coaster.

Like any of these women care.

The TV show is merely a brand extension for all of them: Singer flings her branded bottles of wine at the camera at every opportunity, Frankel allows us to see her playing the boardroom honcho at Skinnygirl. Sell, sell, sell.

But in matters of the heart, Frankel’s slalom has not been so smooth.

In Bethenny Ever After, we saw her with Jason Hoppy, whom she was with until they broke up in 2012. Stonestreet split from his girlfriend, Katherine Tokarz, the same year.

Since then Frankel has appeared with a number of men on her arm and has of course—sell, sell, sell—parlayed all her romantic tribulations into a book, I Suck at Relationships So You Don’t Have To: 10 Rules for Not Screwing Up Your Happy Ever After.

That is a lot of capital letters, and quite a manifesto to take into a new relationship.

The basis and trajectory of her and Stonestreet’s relationship remains unclear, but according to E!, the couple were “all smiles” at a TV party in New York in May.

Stonestreet posted a picture of Frankel with Carole Radziwill and called them “randos.”

Frankel and Stonestreet were also apparently seen at a Dodgers game.

Sweet as this is, it is hardly evidence of a rollicking relationship. Hey-ho.

Most recently, Stonestreet said how playing gay in Modern Family had changed his life.

The actor said he felt he was “on the frontline” fighting for equality. He told Jesse Tyler Ferguson, his screen husband, that if he hears any words of hate directed at him, he’ll punch the offender out.

On Monday Frankel teased her 1.44 million Twitter followers with the news she was being won over by “textual banter.”

But Frankel appeared to dismiss the Stonestreet rumors Tuesday, though not exactly definitively.

And she has also been sharing pictures of a painful wasp sting.

Spokespeople for both Frankel and Stonestreet did not return requests for comment Tuesday.

But we are in love anyway with this notional coupling and can only hope—should it be for real—for a crossover confrontation featuring Cam and Ramona going at it over ownership of a garish sarong.

This must happen.