‘Vanderpump Rules’ Cast Teases Season 11: ‘Frustrating, Fun, Flirty, Chaotic Shit Show’

By Emma Chance | TV | January 19, 2024 |

By Emma Chance | TV | January 19, 2024 |

Ariana Madix warned viewers at the Vanderpump Rules premiere event Wednesday that she did not pull any punches on upcoming season 11.

“There was almost zero life lived in between the reunion and when the new season started filming, so at that point my mindset was just to be me—to be honest with where I’m at, what I’m feeling, if I’m having a good day, if I’m having a bad day, to just be me and not be worried how things are going to come across,” she said.

Her ex Tom Sandoval took a different approach. “I was walking on eggshells,” he said, describing the feeling as “like you were going to step on a metaphoric landmine and explode. It’s tough, it was triggering in really weird ways emotionally.” Yeah, duh, buddy.

Their fearless leader, Lisa Vanderpump, said she spent the season “trying to facilitate some kind of cohesion and not being the one who was judging and pointing and shouting because [Sandoval] had everybody doing that, you saw it at the reunion…It was about trying to listen a little bit—I mean I still had to kick him in the ass, at some point I’ve kicked them all in the ass.”

She wished she’d had more of a chance to kick Rachel Leviss, the other half of the cheating scandal that never quits, in the ass.

“I wish she’d actually come to me instead of sitting in the safety of somebody else’s podcast,” she said, referring to Leviss’s tell-all interview with Bethenny Frankel.

She said Leviss lied when she said Vanderpump paid her “like an intern,” rebutting, “I know exactly how much money she made. It was six figures. It was good!”

Lisa Vanderpump may not have spoken to Leviss, but LaLa Kent did, much to the chagrin of her cast mates and fans.

“There were a couple of reasons why I reached out to her,” Kent said. “Number 1, it resonated with me that she had been isolated, or she said she had been isolated by Tom Sandoval. I know that feeling. I also felt that she needed to come back and apologize wholeheartedly when dust had settled, not when we’re three weeks into Scandoval at a reunion, you know? Like, really, have productive conversations.”

But now that Leviss has started a podcast—Rachel Goes Rogue—she’s no longer interested in having those conversations.

“I think if she opted out and then moved on to live a very normal life? Great, don’t come back. But to not come back and do a podcast instead, I just thought it was one of the lamest decisions to make, and I felt like she was extremely ill-advised.”

As for her relationship with Sandoval, she’s not concerned. “I filmed this show for eight years now and I think maybe two of them I tolerated Sandoval and the rest of them I never really wanted him around, so there wasn’t much of a difference for me,” she said.

Katie Maloney, ex-wife of Sandoval’s bestie Tom Schwartz, said there was a difference for the rest of the cast.

“I think some of these friendships are dead. I don’t think there’s coming back for a lot of them, unlike we’ve seen in the past. I don’t know, but stranger things have happened. There’s been a lot of new friendships born out of this and alliances made, so we’ll see what the future brings.”

Speaking of dead friendships, she and Schwartz might have tried to be cordial last season following their divorce, but this time it was more difficult when they found themselves in a love triangle of their own. (What is it with Bravo Toms and love triangles?)

“Who ever thinks they’re gonna end up in a love triangle with their ex-husband? No one,” she said of their mutual affection for the same woman, Tori Keeth. “We tried to not let it become too dramatic. We try to keep the peace there. It was relatively short-lived, but, yeah, weird times.”

Weird times indeed. Vanderpump Rules season 11 premieres January 30th on Bravo.