Martha's Apprentice Conflict of Interest?

08/29/2005 at 08:00 AM EDT

Martha's Apprentice Conflict of Interest?
Bethenny Frankel
Virginia Sherwood/NBC Universal
With Martha Stewart's electronic ankle monitor due to be removed this Wednesday and the future looking bright on her media empire, the domestic diva has offset a potential conflict-of-interest charge regarding her upcoming The Apprentice: Martha Stewart show on NBC.

Bethenny Frankel, a New York cookie company owner and one of 16 hopefuls competing for a $250,000 job on the new reality show, dated Brian Koppelman, who is the son of Stewart's trusted right-hand man, Charles Koppelman – the same Charles Koppelman who will serve as a judge on the show, the New York Post reports.

The elder Koppelman is chairman of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. The younger Koppleman, 39, is a talent agent who discovered Tracy Chapman, while Frankel, 34, is the daughter of world-renowned horse trainer Bobby Frankel, says the Post.

A spokesman for Mark Burnett Productions, the producer of the show, told the paper that "the situation is dealt with in the first few minutes" of the program's Sept. 21 premiere. "Viewers will have to tune in to see what happens."

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