Six years ago, on “The Real Housewives of New York City,” we watched Bethenny Frankel’s relationship blossom with the tall, handsome Jason Hoppy, a sales rep she had met at a nightclub in NYC.

Compared to the wild “Housewives,” Hoppy was the epitome of normal — a straight shooter from a humble family in Pennsylvania. He was Frankel’s anchor.

And the relationship was TV gold. Bravo gave them their own spinoff, “Bethenny Getting Married?” — subsequently named “Bethenny Ever After” — where we watched, over the course of three seasons, the loving (and pregnant) couple marry at the lavish Four Seasons restaurant, get rich, joke, and eventually bicker.

Now the couple is divorced with one child, and the storyline has turned on Hoppy.

Ever since rejoining the cast of “RHONY” in 2015 after a three-year hiatus, Frankel has been documenting her bitter split with her money-grubbing ex, who no longer appears on the show. She has griped about his refusal to vacate the $5 million Tribeca condo she purchased in 2011, cried about the nearly $12,000 a month in spousal support she was forced to pay, and told Andy Cohen during last season’s reunion episode that she felt mentally tortured by the ongoing, “excruciating” divorce.

In a matter of years, Hoppy has gone from unknown to social pariah — and he’s got Bravo to thank.

Since launching in 2006 with “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” the franchise has grown to include nine series.

And while the women knowingly sign up for the perks and pitfalls that come with airing their dirty laundry on national television, the countless husbands, boyfriends, lovers and one-night stands who appear as peripheral players aren’t as prepared for the infamy that comes with being a “Real Housewife” side piece — with many having been publicly humiliated and accused of being criminals, abusers, drug users or gay.

“Can you tell me a single guy who is on the show and hasn’t been villainized?” Slade Smiley asks The Post. He appeared on the first two “Orange County” seasons with his former fiancée, Jo De La Rosa, and again from 2010 through 2014 with his current fiancée, Gretchen Rossi.

“That is their format. Most of the guys are villainized, and the ones who aren’t are the ones who show up and say nothing.”

Like Hoppy, scores of former “House”-husbands have endured divorce, job loss and, in the case of former “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” cast member Taylor Armstrong’s ex Russell Armstrong, even been driven to suicide, after rumors of his spousal abuse were aired. Last August, former “RHONY” star Kristen Taekman’s husband, Josh, was outed for being on the cheating site Ashley Madison, something that never would have made national news had he not been affiliated with the series. And “Orange County’s” Vicki Gunvalson’s ex-boyfriend Brooks Ayers has been a regular on gossip sites since lying about having cancer on the show.

According to multiple men who have appeared on assorted “Real Housewives” series and were interviewed by The Post, the women are the stars and the guys are the suckers.

Simon van Kempen recalls the backlash he received after appearing alongside his wife, Alex McCord, on the first four seasons of “The Real Housewives of New York City.”

“You’d have viewers watching and saying, ‘Why is he always there and barging in?’ ” says van Kempen, who was filmed spending five figures on Roberto Cavalli gowns for McCord and plotting the couple’s rise in NYC society.

While the negative comments on social media hurt the father of two, it hurt his career even more.

Van Kempen says his employers at the Hotel Chandler in the Flatiron District, where he worked as the general manager, were less than thrilled with his side job.

“It gave them a two-dimensional view of who I was, and in the hotel industry, the guests are meant to be the stars, the employees aren’t,” says van Kempen.

He left Hotel Chandler in 2010 to concentrate full time on the show. But when he and his wife got axed from the series in 2011, van Kempen couldn’t land another hotel gig despite 25 years of experience.

“I spent a year trying,” he says. “Being on the show certainly didn’t help overall.

‘Can you tell me a single guy who is on the show and hasn’t been villainized?’ - Slade Smiley

“We’ll put it this way: I’m now a law student . . . in Australia,” says 52-year-old van Kempen, who fled New York with McCord in 2014 “for a clean break.”

As for Smiley — who came off as condescending and self-obsessed (he claims he shot his scenes in a satirical way) — he says that being on the show “had a dramatic effect” on his business in Orange County.

“My friends knew the real me, but the rest of the world just assumed I was an arrogant ass,” says the original “House”-hubby.

He recalls hiring a sales rep to join his title firm in 2006. She signed on the dotted line and business cards were made. But there was one problem: Smiley.

“The majority of her clients said, ‘Wait a minute. That’s the company where Slade works. That guy’s a dick, and if you go and work over there, we’re not going to give you our business.’

“She ended up canceling our contract,” says Smiley, who now runs an entertainment consulting firm.

The show hasn’t just ruined the male stars’ careers — it’s ruined some of their marriages, too. “Frasier” star Kelsey Grammer and his wife of 14 years, Camille, parted ways after she joined the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” in 2010. “RHONY” staple Ramona Singer and her longtime husband, Mario, finalized their divorce last year after he was caught with his mistress. And on this season’s “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” we learn that Yolanda Foster’s famous composer hubby, David, is divorcing his stunning wife after her long and torturous battle with Lyme disease.

In sickness and in health, till reality television do you part.

“RHONY” cast member Sonja Morgan says many of the Bravo divorces (and there are many) are the result of the woman’s rising star — and the man’s rising insecurity.

“It can be emasculating,” says Morgan, who joined the show in 2010 as a divorcée. “You have a powerful woman on a show like that and the husband tries to be relevant. There becomes a dynamic where the women can overshadow the men a little too much.”

One husband of a former “Housewife” who asked to remain anonymous recalls being “dragged around events like a puppy dog.

“Your wife’s like, ‘Hold my purse while they take my picture.’ I’m kind of like, ‘I’m not your little bitch,’ ” he says. “It definitely creates tension in the relationship.”

The emerging power struggles are ironic, considering that without their husbands, many of the “Housewives” wouldn’t have a spot on the show in the first place.

According to those interviewed, the “House”-husbands’ appearances are imperative if their wives want to stay on-air, as producers want to show as much of the women’s lives as possible.

“Gretchen told the producers she was dating me and that I had no interest in filming, and so they said, ‘If he doesn’t film, you’re not going to be on the show,’ ” says Smiley.

“I decided to go on it so she would have an opportunity.”

Surprisingly, former NFL player Kordell Stewart — ex-husband of “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Porsha Williams — “appreciate[s] Bravo in more ways than you can imagine” after the series showed a side of Williams he had never seen before. Over the course of filming the show, Stewart realized that he had made a mistake and married the wrong woman.

“She was an ordained minister when I met her,” Stewart, who divorced his wife in December 2013 after 2½ years of marriage, tells The Post. “Now she’s beating people up and walking around with her butt crack out all the time.

“You compromise and sacrifice to give her an opportunity to live out her dreams, and then you lose her along the way,” adds Stewart, who published his memoir, “Truth,” in March.

But just because you remove yourself from the marriage doesn’t mean you’ve removed yourself from the show.

Post-divorce, Williams continued to drag Stewart’s name through the mud by addressing the homosexual rumors that have followed the former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback for years. “There were definitely times in the marriage,” Williams stated on the show, “that Kordell didn’t necessarily want me physically, and that made me wonder, what does he want? Did he just want me to be on his arm in the public eye?”

Of course, there are certainly upsides to being a man on the “Real Housewives” shows, which is partially how the men get hooked in the first place. There are free trips, the opportunity to promote your products and business — and, according to the anonymous “House”-husband, watching you and your wife interact on television can actually be beneficial to your relationship.

“It made me re-evaluate some of the ways I talk to [my wife] . . . [Sometimes] you’re not cognizant of how you speak, and I have a really bad temper,” he says, admitting that the show “made it seem like I’m this really mean, curt husband who is borderline abusive.”

Despite the potential perks, Stewart advises male newbies to “be ready, and know what you’re getting into.”

It’s advice that John Mahdessian, owner of the chichi Upper East Side dry cleaner Madame Paulette, ought to have heeded.

This season, a sweaty Mahdessian is the punching bag du jour on “RHONY.”

In a recent episode, Frankel accused him of being “all hopped up” on drugs, calling attention to his dilated pupils and penchant for partying. It was just another reason — including Mahdessian’s shameless self-promotion — why Frankel told “Housewife” Dorinda Medley she needs to dump the so-called Sultan of Stains, whom she’s been dating for five years.

“It’s about the television show and the story and not about you,” warns Stewart. “The woman’s the one that has control. Not him . . . Guess who loses: the man. Just be prepared for that.”