Brandi Glanville wants Leann Rimes 'crap' to end, focusing on family

LOS ANGELES – Brandi Glanville may be best known as the loud-mouthed, combative single mom on the popular “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” but there’s much more to this 41-year-old former model than meets the eye.

Just don’t call her a brand.

“I hate that word because people say it all the time and you hear people say ‘protecting my brand,’ but it is like you’re protecting yourself. I am honestly just trying to do things that will be for the long run even after the reality TV world has come to an end,” Glanville told FOX411.

“My long-term goals are to buy a house for the kids; we are still renting. I want to secure a financial future for us. My kids are going to start private school soon.”

Glanville, of course, has two children with former husband Eddie Cibrian – who left her in 2009 for Leann Rimes – and while the war of words between mom and stepmom has been the subject of much media fodder, Glanville says she hopes to have a civil, amicable relationship with the country music star one day.

“I really want that. I don’t want all this crap to go on forever, for my kids’ sake, too. For the first time in a while I sat down the other day at parent-teacher conferences and we all got along. It was easy and it made me feel there was hope,” she said. “I don’t see us sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner, but I want to get along with them and to negotiate easily.”

But for the time being, Glanville – who boasts almost half a million twitter followers, an estimated net worth of around $1 million and earns a reported $175,000 per season on the hit Bravo show – is planning to turn that million into multi. She has a still very secretive smartphone app based on her book that she is preparing to launch, an online BrandiGlanville.com store with T-shirts that’s also about to bow, and she is the part-owner and star of a new podcast alongside the likes of Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew.

“I’ve been asked to do different business ventures, like through skincare and this and that, and they will send me the products. But I have turned down a lot of money because I didn’t believe in the stuff they sent me,” Glanville noted. “I am honest and I want to believe in anything I promote.”

Then there is the follow-up to this year’s New York Times best-selling memoir, “Drinking and Tweeting: And Other Brandi Blunders.” The book, set to hit the stands in early 2014, is a lighthearted read about micro-relationships, overcoming the infidelity/divorce heartbreak, and finding love again at 40 “with two kids in a city where all the guys (her) age are dating 20-year-olds.”

Not surprisingly, Glanville looks up to fellow “Housewives” star Bethenny Frankel as a source of business aspiration, having watched the reality show/weight loss guru/talk show host flourish into an empire with an assumed value of around $25 million. She also credits her slow-forming thick skin, which comes from having started in the entertainment industry as a teen model, for her unrelenting desire to succeed.

“I’ve been told I’m not a face girl, I was a body girl, and all I could do was runway,” she said. “Karl Lagerfeld sent me home from a fashion show in Rome because he said I had a short neck. I was crying and didn’t understand, since then I was always concerned with my neck. I was told I was fat, even though at the time I weighed 100 pounds and was 5-10. It can be tough.

“And I think for a long time I did lose my ambition and was just happy being the woman behind the man, changing diapers and making dinner. I didn’t have goals for myself other than being a great mother and wife… I am still figuring out who I am and what I want, but I am really having a good time doing it.”

Danielle Jones-Wesley contributed to this report.