Lisa Vanderpump addressed the falling out Ariana Madix and Lala Kent had at the taping of the Vanderpump Rules season 11 reunion last month during an interview earlier this week.
Before looking back on the “emotionally draining” taping during a separate interview, Lisa, 63, appeared on a podcast, where the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum admitted that what went down between Ariana, 38, and Lala, 33, was complicated, revealed if she thinks they’ll reconcile, and explained her support of Tom Sandoval, 41.
“It was very complicated,” Lisa told Page Six on its Virtual Reali-Tea podcast on Tuesday. “I wouldn’t say Ariana eviscerated Lala.”
As Pump Rules fans may have seen, The Bravo Babe on X, formerly known as Twitter, suggested that Ariana “eviscerated Lala at the end of the reunion” and claimed it was a “friendship over type of situation.” However, days later, while appearing on The Talk, Lala said, “Only one of those things is true [and] I’ll let y’all decide.”
Although Lisa confirmed that there was an encounter between Ariana and Lala, she said Lala was not verbally debilitated in any way.
“I don’t think Lala ever wastes any time letting anybody know what she feels which is why we kind of like her,” Lisa said. “I’ve always been a big proponent of supporting Lala. I think … [she has] just been a great addition to that show.”
As for their future, Lisa doesn’t believe Ariana and Lala’s feud will last.
“Have you seen how those dynamics change? They change quicker than most people change their underwear. You just think, ‘I’ve got this now. That’s never going to happen. A line’s in the sand’ — and then they jump over it,” Lisa noted. “This group is very outspoken but also pretty forgiving if you think [about] what we’ve been through.”
Lisa also looked back on her and Lala’s decision to extend grace to Sandoval after his affair with Rachel “Raquel” Leviss, 29, especially after learning he was facing suicidal thoughts.
“When we jumped into that, there was a lot of heightened feelings. It was very difficult for me and I talk very honestly about the whole suicide of my brother,” Lisa explained, signaling to her late sibling, Mark Vanderpump, who took his life in 2018. “I talked about how I’ve been involved in suicide prevention and then my brother committed suicide and then Tom actually saying he had suicidal ideation because he felt the whole world was against him, which it was.”
Lisa also discussed Sandoval’s depression with Extra TV.
“I was very sensitive to that,” she admitted. “That was a very serious subject to me… I became very worried about that, you know? It’s like one of the biggest causes of death in young men in Britain, especially. So, yeah, I was very aware of that.”
Looking back at Sandoval’s affair, Lisa acknowledged that everyone makes mistakes.
“We talked about that. I said at the reunion previously, ‘Look, he didn’t kill anybody. Everybody needs to back off.’ But isn’t forgiveness a part of moving forward? It really is. I don’t expect everybody to be perfect. It’s like, we screw up. That’s what we do,” Lisa stated.
While Ariana was left devastated by Sandoval’s cheating, Lisa said it was “amazing” to see her make a comeback before noting that there’s still “a lot of animosity between” her and Sandoval.
As for the reunion, Lisa told Extra TV that it was a bit different than usual.
“It wasn’t chaotic, but it was definitely emotionally draining. It still is,” she shared. “And although there is some cohesion in the group, everybody still has a lot of feelings about the way everybody’s dealt with [it].”