‘Vanderpump Rules’ No Longer Needs Lisa Vanderpump
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In the final part of the Vanderpump Rules Season 10 reunion, Lisa Vanderpump — the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star who first masterminded a show about the staff working at her west Hollywood restaurant/bar SUR — spoke for Bravo fans across the world when she gave Raquel Leviss some hard truths.
Vanderpump was disgusted by a particular scene from the season, when Leviss probed Ariana Madix for details on her sex life on-camera, despite the fact that she had been secretly sleeping with her boyfriend, Tom Sandoval, for seven months at this point. It’s the story now universally known as “Scandoval,” which if you’re here you must have heard of. “How did you feel, when you looked her in the eyes? This person who has loved and defended you?” Vanderpump exclaims. “To me, that’s the most mind-boggling, gobmacking, astounding piece of film I have ever seen!”
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As this explosive season finally comes to a close, there is a moment from the earlier parts of the reunion that I’m still thinking about. A bejeweled Vanderpump sits in prime position next to reunion host Andy Cohen. As the matriarch of the show, she has once again taken issue with one of her underlings: Lala Kent. Her crime? Kent has just described Sandoval as a “dangerous person” for cheating on his “life partner” for seven months. Vanderpump thinks Kent’s stance on it is “ridiculous.”
“I didn’t ask for anyone’s opinion,” Kent says, directing her retort toward Vanderpump without so much as looking at her.
“Well, you have my opinion,” Vanderpump responds, with a glint in her eye that suggests she thinks she just got the last word.
“Well that’s great. I reject it,” Kent says. Bam!
In Part 2, we saw Vanderpump clashing with Kent again. This time, Kent and her co-star James Kennedy were accusing her of defending Sandoval “too much” as the rest of the cast took him to task. “You gotta stop!” Kent shouted at Vanderpump. “I need to stop?” she replied, again with an audible disbelief that she was being challenged by a subordinate.
In seasons gone by, this type of an exchange would have seemed unthinkable. But now, after Scandoval has got everyone from Jennifer Lopez to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner talking, it feels representative of the fact that the dynamics on Vanderpump Rules have changed. Vanderpump founded the show and her name is in the title, sure. But she’s no longer its main character, or the reason why fans tune in.
Looking back to the beginning of Vanderpump Rules, way back in 2013 when its cast lived in dingey rented apartments and waited tables, the vibe was very different. As the breakout star of RHOBH, Vanderpump was the show’s main draw. The first season premiere of Vanderpump Rules followed an episode of RHOBH with no ad break and, initially, the show capitalized on its audience’s desire to see more of Vanderpump. Scheana Shay was originally cast on the show because she was the former mistress of actor Eddie Cibrian, the former husband of Vanderpump’s RHOBH co-star Brandi Glanville, so there was an intentional crossover between the two shows.
In the early seasons, Vanderpump would stroll around her small fleet of medium-tier West Hollywood restaurants looking fabulous and acting like she was CEO of an international conglomerate. The younger cast were new to reality TV, so as a more seasoned reality star (and executive producer), LVP would insert herself into their lives to guide the drama along. In her role as “the boss” she’d host team meetings at SUR, which functioned as showdowns between the dueling staff. As the show went on, Vanderpump would employ girlfriends and boyfriends of the cast (or people they were suspected of cheating with) just to be messy. Love her or hate her, incredible reality TV was created under LVP’s watchful eye.
Part of what worked about the early seasons of Vanderpump Rules was the unequal power dynamic between LVP and her staff. She was not only their boss at SUR, but she was responsible for handing them a golden opportunity to be “reality-TV famous.” By contrast, Vanderpump struggled with not being in charge on RHOBH, where she was frequently accused of staging storylines or manipulating her co-stars. Her exit in Season Nine came after the cast accused her of leaking stories and eventually tired of her acting like the show’s unofficial executive producer.
On Vanderpump Rules, these machiavellian qualities worked in Vanderpump’s favor. Here, she actually was the executive producer and she didn’t have to act like the staff at SUR were her equals, or hide the fact that she was blatantly stirring the pot to create drama. The show was geared around portraying her in a positive light and most of the cast knew that their role was to misbehave a little bit, but not too much. If they did, it wouldn’t end well for them — in the early seasons, being fired from SUR often meant leaving the show (with one notable exception).
As Vanderpump Rules became more popular and the cast took advantage of opportunities beyond SUR, the power disparity lessened. Most of the cast stopped being on the payroll at Vanderpump’s restaurants and, without her businesses as the central backdrop, her role in the show became unclear and muddled.
There was a scene from Season Nine that stuck out in particular to me. Ratings were low and Covid precautions were still inhibiting filming, with the cast attending an endless cycle of themed parties because they couldn’t go on trips or go to bars. In this episode Vanderpump was, for reasons which are still a mystery to me, attending a nose-job consultation with a pre-Scandoval Raquel Leviss, who she barely knew. This was one of many scenes I watched and thought: What the hell is she doing here?
When Vanderpump Rules returned for this season, expectations were sky-high even before Scandoval broke in March 2023. Leviss was rumored to have hooked up with Tom Schwartz, who was only recently divorced from their co-star Katie Maloney. Fans were also keen to learn more about the accusations of sexual misconduct against Lala Kent’s ex-boyfriend, film producer Randall Emmett, which were reported by the Los Angeles Times.
This season, either production or Vanderpump herself seem to have realized that it’s not realistic to have her constantly hanging out with a bunch of people half her age, most of whom no longer work for her. Her screen time on the show has been reduced and we’ve seen her deployed much more strategically: as a shoulder to cry on, or a business mentor. At one point, she even had her husband Ken wander into her kitchen to reveal a major pre-Scandoval bombshell about Sandoval and Leviss spending the night together. The obviously-staged moment was vintage LVP.
It feels like Vanderpump has flourished this season in a reduced role. Now that she is no longer showing up where she’s not needed, we can see the best of her — like her tearful speech at SUR in what would have been the season finale, or when she consoled Madix after she learned about her boyfriend’s betrayal. Pre-Scandoval, she was one of the first cast-members to realize that something was up and she got straight on FaceTime with Sandoval to probe him, once again proving herself as a GOAT reality star.
As a viewer, I’ve been enjoying Vanderpump more than ever this season. A “less is more” approach has steered her presence away from being patronizing and inauthentic. I’d even go so far as to call it an LVP renaissance. It was puzzling, then, that she seemed so keen to put herself right in the middle of the drama by repeatedly defending Sandoval at the reunion. On social media, fans questioned why LVP — who not uncoincidentally opened a successful West Hollywood bar with Sandoval and their co-star Tom Schwartz — was sticking up for him so much. The backlash was so loud that Vanderpump was accused of having vested interests and, on Twitter, she was forced to defend her own defense of him.
Perhaps Vanderpump was merely trying to portray herself as the voice of reason — after all, for purposes of balance, she came down much harder on Sandoval and Leviss in the final episode. But her behavior across the reunion — like taking it upon herself to traipse into Sandoval’s dressing room to coach him to be more emotional — suggests she might not be thrilled about her reduced role on the show. From an ego standpoint, it’s easy to see why: she created it and her name is on it. She’s still the center of cast pictures and the opening credits. Why shouldn’t she be in the thick of it all?
The answer to that question is connected to another one: whose show is it? In the Season Eight finale, Vanderpump came to blows with another huge ego: former cast member Jax Taylor. At one point, he said: “This is my show!” Unimpressed, she reminded him: “This is my show.” It’s definitely not Jax Taylor’s show. (He’s no longer on it, even if he told Rolling Stone he would consider an offer to return). But I’m not sure it’s LVP’s show, either: Vanderpump Rules is a joint endeavor, where no one person is more powerful than the combined cast (for that, we’ll have to wait for her upcoming Hulu series Vanderpump Villa). As the creator of the show, but also as a star and producer who has guided its young stars, Vanderpump’s contribution can’t be understated. But is she the reason people are still tuning in? Of course not.
Kent and Kennedy going toe-to-toe with Vanderpump is a sign that, in some ways, she is a victim of her own success. The cast she cherry-picked and mentored have become reality stars in their own right who now feel comfortable challenging her. And sometimes, the audience is going to side with them.
After Season Nine, there were rumors that Vanderpump Rules was facing the ax, before divorces and hookups reignited fan enthusiasm for another reason. Now, in the aftermath of Scandoval, it’s clear that it is the younger cast and the real drama in their lives that are the driving force behind this show, not its creator.
Lisa Vanderpump is still an asset to the show, but at this point it could thrive without her.
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