Lisa Rinna is going out with a bang!
ICYMI, the 59-year-old reality star revealed earlier this month that she was leaving The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills after eight seasons. As Lisa moves on from the Bravo show, she is not doing so without spilling some major tea first! She sat down for a conversation with Interview Magazine on Friday, where she talked about everything from her experience on RHOBH, her relationships with her co-stars, her exit from the show, and more! Trust us when we say she did not hold back!
As you know, filming for season 12 of the show was not easy for Lisa as she was not only grappling with the loss of her mother, Lois Rinna, but she was involved in some major drama with Kathy Hilton after a cast trip to Aspen. After facing backlash from the viewers, Lisa realized that the series was too “unhealthy” for her and she needed to go. She explained to the publication:
“What happened was I left, really, right after the reunion. People don’t know that. But I let everybody know right after the reunion that I was going to move on, that was going to be it. … I had a rough year. I never think, ‘Oh wow. It’s just such a rough year, and I’ll never be able to handle it again.’ I can always come back and handle something. But something has gotten to the Housewife Universe because of what’s going on in the world, and it’s reflected in the way the fans react to the world of Housewives. And I just think it’s unhealthy. It wasn’t working for me. It wasn’t right for me.”
Related: Andy Cohen & Sutton Stracke Address Lisa’s Dramatic Exit!
In fact, the television personality said she “f**king hated” working on season 12 after what went down, especially between her and Kathy:
“The story just didn’t get told as two-sidedly as I would’ve liked.”
Bravo fans will recall that tensions between the two women came to a head when the 63-year-old had an off-camera meltdown during which she spoke horribly about her sister Kyle Richards and other cast members, including Crystal Kung Minkoff and Sutton Stracke. Check out the drama (below):
However, Kathy slammed the accusations on the reunion, claiming Lisa only brought it up to secure her spot in the next season. She also called the Melrose Place alum “the biggest bully in Hollywood.” Oof. Speaking about the situation, Lisa remarked that it was “unfortunate” that there “weren’t cameras in Aspen” to capture what happened at the time, adding:
“In the moment, I didn’t think to turn on my voice memos. When somebody’s having a nuclear breakdown, you don’t think, ‘Oh, I should be filming this.’ That doesn’t come across your mind. When you’ve actually tried to save somebody and get somebody out of a club because they were hurting themselves, you think, ‘What the fuck do I do? Do I call the police? I don’t know what to do.’ So yes, it was unfortunate that in this sprinter van, there were no cameras. Because we were done filming. We’d shut down.
Lisa then claimed there was a “smear campaign that went on online against” her following the drama, saying:
“It was all very calculated. And there was a person on payroll doing that.”
Whoa! Despite the drama between her and Kathy, though, it sounds like they’ve made amends. She recalled to the outlet that her husband Harry Hamlin encouraged her to work things out with the fashion designer at the 2022 People’s Choice Awards:
“We saw Kathy at the People’s Choice Awards. Harry said to me, ‘You really should just say hi to her and just try to move on from this because it’s not going to do either one of you any good.’ So at the People’s Choice Awards, I saw her. We had already had moments together where we didn’t talk and didn’t even acknowledge one another. And I said, ‘Hi Kathy, how are you? You look great.’ And it broke the ice. She and I were chatting with Erika.”
She continued:
“I give her a lot of credit for showing up to the reunion, because she could have run like Lisa Vanderpump did. But she came and she fought. She’s got balls and I respect that she stood up for what she wants people to believe and what she believes in. And I felt good about seeing her and going, ‘Hey, we kind of went through the fire together and here we are. We’re still standing. We’ve been nominated for an award. We do a TV show and it’s time to move along.’”
Looking back on this past season, Lisa ultimately doesn’t feel she owes anyone an apology – including Sutton Stracke after the invite debacle over Elton John’s annual Oscars party:
“I’ve thought a lot about it. I already apologized to Sutton [Stracke] at the reunion saying, “Yeah, I had some moments with you that weren’t cool.” But I didn’t do anything other than tell the truth. And when I screamed at Sutton, I apologized in the moment at the dinner. And at my house, I was drunk after the wine tasting. These are not excuses, they just are. I still think it’s really shitty what she did, trying to put this ticket thing on us.”
She also insisted she was “no more terrible than” she’s been in seasons past:
“I just do what the job requires. Some years, it’s more successful than others. This year, if you really look at it, I was no more terrible than I’ve ever been. I raised my voice to Sutton Stracke twice. Big fucking deal. Look at Erika’s behavior. Our behavior is similar, but to single out this year—”
Moving on to Lisa Vanderpump…
In case you didn’t know, the pair feuded for years, starting when Lisa accused LVP of encouraging everyone in the cast to claim Yolanda Hadid had Munchausen Syndrome instead of Lyme Disease. Addressing one of her most controversial moments, she doubled down on the accusation that the businesswoman fueled the storyline:
“I was too new at the time to realize that that’s the story they wanted to push and I took the bait.”
Looking for clarification, the journalist questioned if “producers wanted to push Munchausen’s by Proxy.” The Days Of Our Lives star then accused LVP of somewhat “brainwashing” her at the time:
“Well I don’t know if it was producers, but it was Vanderpump and a little bit of Kyle. And I didn’t realize it at the time because they’re so fucking good at it. So I just jumped right into it. Vanderpump would call me in the morning for days and feed… They feed you. It’s like a fucking brainwashing. I’m not even kidding. And I took the bait. I did exactly what they wanted me to do.”
Their feud later escalated when the Rinna Beauty founder joked about a “pill bag” she carried with her and suggested putting Xanax in a smoothie during a 2017 RHOBH episode. In the Interview Magazine conversation, Lisa revealed after that episode, she knew her co-stars “were behind the scenes talking about me being a drug addict.” She further claimed:
“It was Vanderpump who wanted this narrative out there that I was a pill head, or whatever.”
And there’s more! The pair really got into it in 2019 when Puppygate, better known as Lucy Lucy Apple Juice to fans, happened. The drama started when Dorit Kemsley adopted a dog from Vanderpump Dogs but later gave it away to another family when she realized it wasn’t a good fit with her loved ones. That family then placed the puppy in a kill shelter. When they scanned the dog for a microchip, they found contact info for Vanderpump Dogs and alerted the group. LVP ended up confronting Dorit about the situation – and when the incident leaked to the press, the cast accused the Vanderpump Rules star of orchestrating it. She denied the allegations and quit RHOBH midway through season 9. When asked about the storylines in Interview Magazine, Lisa responded:
“She thought she could get away with it with Apple Lucy Juicy Bucy Pucy, and she didn’t. Because I was already onto her.”
However, Lisa believes “she could have fought her way through” the Puppygate drama if she actually showed up for the season 9 reunion:
“What a p***y. She didn’t show up to the reunion, boo-hoo.”
As for their long-standing rift? Lisa noted they “always had a really great cat and mouse game that we played”:
“We were really great together. And then once I really got caught onto what she does, I wasn’t having it. You don’t get to not have your hands dirty. I really saw what she was doing and she liked that.”
When asked if the former co-stars have repaired things, Lisa revealed there’s zero” relationship between them. We cannot say this news is surprising! We mean, the SUR owner tweeted “Ding Dong” when the author announced her exit — a clear reference to the famous “Ding Dong the Witch is dead” line from Wizard of Oz. So it’s safe to say, things are still pretty bad between them! Rinna commented on the shady post, saying:
“Well, that’s what everybody said when she left the show.”
And LVP isn’t the only cast member she doesn’t have a relationship with anymore! While on RHOBH, Lisa also had beef with Denise Richards when she tried to get her to admit to having an affair with Brandi Glanville. It was a very messy situation. But where do they stand today? Lisa shared that their relationship is “nonexistent.”
And of course, Lisa had a lot more to say about her other co-stars. She touched some more on Sutton and Garcelle Beauvais, insisting they will “have a tough time” next season “because they’re going to have to show up and work”:
“I did a lot of work. Because I’m a worker bee and I’ll just do it. I’ll say it. I don’t have any fear. If you’re so liked, you’re not going to want to do the work. So, who’s going to do the work over there? That’s my question.”
She also noted that the women are “sharks,” agreeing with the interviewer that they need to be “comfortable with being villainous”:
“Well, they just need to be who they really are. They are that, but they just have to let go of this facade they created.”
As for Crystal? Lisa said she gives her “the benefit of the doubt” since she’s “too young,” adding:
“You’ve got to be a more hardened bitch like we are to do this show. She’s like a baby dolphin and we are sharks.”
Damn. Wonder what her former cast members will have to say about this interview! Reactions to her confessions, Perezcious readers? Did anything come as a shock to you? Sound OFF in the comments. You can also ch-ch-check out the entire Interview Magazine piece HERE.
[Image via Bravo/YouTube]
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