When Lisa Vanderpump essentially ghosted The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills halfway through season nine, it felt like a pivotal moment in the show’s history. With an OG gone, and most of the drama out the door behind her, would the group crumble, or come back even stronger? Well, I’m happy to report that thus far, season 10 has been a major return to form, after a few seasons that struggled to hold viewers’ attention. This week, we sat down with RHOBH star Dorit Kemsley on the Mention It All Podcast, and she shared her thoughts on Lisa’s exit, and why things have really clicked this season.
Going into the current season, Dorit says that “none of us really knew what to expect, because Lisa has always been there—she’s one of the originals.” But once filming got going, things progressed naturally. “There was so much going on that it didn’t feel like there was a missing part,” Dorit says, adding, “none of us probably thought it would’ve been that easy of a transition, but it really was.” Dorit credits this smooth transition with the fact that “the core group has definitely gotten stronger and tighter.” She’s now in her fourth season on the show, and she feels “comfortable and confident” around her fellow cast members, despite acknowledging that “you wouldn’t guess that in some of the episodes.” She also credits this season’s two new cast members, Garcelle Beauvais and Sutton Stracke, for “really making it fresh.”
While the show hasn’t suffered from Lisa Vanderpump’s departure, Dorit is still working through the loss of her long-standing friendship with her former costar. “As far as our relationship, sadly, we haven’t spoken. And that’s not because I haven’t wanted to, or haven’t made attempts, but we haven’t spoken since last season. So there really isn’t a relationship.” While Dorit still says she’s hopeful for a future with Lisa, she’s “not stopping life and waiting for it to happen.”
Though Dorit is positive about her relationships with the other women on the show, there are obviously some rough waters ahead on this season. When asked what we can still look forward to seeing, Dorit kept it vague, just saying, “There’s obviously drama. And then the drama gets bigger. And bigger. And then bigger. And then there’s a few bombs, so there’s a lot to look forward to.” Buckle up your seatbelts, because things are about to get messy.
To hear our full interview with Dorit Kemsley, check out the latest episode of the Mention It All Podcast:
Images: Eugene Powers / Shutterstock.com
Just weeks ago, a grown woman was caught on film having a meltdown while on the job. She yelled at her boss, suggested that she was the reason for his success, and publicly shamed a coworker with same-sex proclivities, saying, “We don’t do that” and “Turn it down!” In any other functional workplace, this behavior would get a person immediately fired, but in Real Housewives land it gets you ratings and a promotion. Of course, this isn’t the first time Vicki Gunvalson has gone off the rails, but it is the first time it has felt like a palpable line had been crossed. After her entitled and delusional outbursts at The Real Housewives of Orange County season 14 reunion, it became clear that she had fallen prey to some classic Real Housewife pre-retirement symptoms, suffered by many fellow Housewives, past and present. Read on for the signs a Real Housewife should leave the party.
1. Not Fully Participating in Filming and Reunions
There are always going to be parts of our jobs that we don’t like, for example, having to interact with other human beings partnering with coworkers on group projects. However, we’re paid to fully execute our responsibilities, and a Housewife’s duties are no different. This means showing up to all filming obligations, regardless of whether you feel like it or are getting along with your fellow castmates. Unfortunately, Lisa Vanderpump didn’t seem to understand this concept throughout season 9 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, when she just decided to stop filming midway through and chicken out on the reunion because she wasn’t getting along with the other women. It’s no wonder she was fired won’t return for the upcoming season. NeNe Leakes is also currently suffering from a similar delusion on this season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta. She’s barely been a presence and is leaving the heavy lifting to “friends of” like Marlo Hampton. It’s like asking an intern to bear your entire workload. Aspirational, but not how it actually works. If the Bravo execs have any sense, they’ll give Ms. Leakes her walking papers.
2. Forgetting The Show Is An Ensemble Effort
It’s natural that in any season there are going to be fan favorites and breakout stars. But Housewives get into trouble when they start believing their own hype and convincing themselves that they are the stars of their shows and their fellow castmates are merely supporting players. Vicki demonstrated this over and over again on the season 14 reunion, constantly making references to “my show” and saying “Get her off my show!” in reference to Braunwyn. Teresa Giudice is also guilty of using similar language on multiple occasions. What both Vicki and Teresa fail to realize is that they are on a show that thrives—nay, depends—on the interactions between cast members. Unless you’re Bethenny Frankel, you’re not compelling enough to carry your own show. Suck it up and know your role before you find yourself out of a job.
3. Crossing Moral And/Or Legal Boundaries
As Housewife fans, we live for drama, but when that drama derives from behavior that is immoral or downright illegal, it becomes hard to stand by the Housewife in question. We can never forget Vicki’s entanglement with real-life Dirty John Brooks Ayers, who spent the bulk of season 10 perpetrating a cancer scam, and although she was fully aware of this claimed to know nothing about it, she lost a lot of her luster with fans and the storyline was widely considered a low point for the series. Behavior that goes even further and ventures into criminal territory will get you fired, as Phaedra Parks learned after the revelation during the season 9 Atlanta reunion that Phaedra spread defamatory rumors claiming Kandi and Todd wanted to drug Porsha in order to take advantage of her. Attorney Phaedra should have known better than anyone that no one wants to deal with lawyers.
4. Being Inauthentic
We’ve all deduced by now that “reality” television is hardly real in the way, say, documentary footage or live news reporting is real. Plots need to be fleshed out, and at times that leads to storylines that can come off a bit contrived. However, when a Housewife herself is inauthentic, it’s a deal-breaker, and a telltale sign that she has no business being on the show. Tamra Judge on Orange County is a perfect current example. A woman who was once a pot-stirring firecracker prone to taking her top off is now, over a decade later, a pot-stirring firecracker prone to taking her top off. Only now it’s no longer novel and comes off as a desperate attempt to stay relevant on a show that is evolving without her. Another party guilty of inauthenticity of a different type is Dorit Kemsley on Beverly Hills. Forgetting about her put-on accent, Dorit’s refusal to air any of her real-life controversies makes her one of the phoniest Housewives we’ve ever had. It’s unclear what she brings to the show, other than a piggish husband and a penchant for over-the-top, label-displaying fashion she can’t actually afford. Yawn.
5. Avoiding Drama
Just like part of the job is showing up to filming at the appointed times, another integral part of being a Housewife is getting into it with other Housewives. Yet, year after year, there are always several women who complain that they “don’t want any drama” and refuse to go toe-to-toe with the others. In fact, aside from Puppygate, the entire cast of Beverly Hills built a whole season around this ethos, leaving us with one of the most boring seasons of the show we’ve ever seen (and that’s saying something). Even Namaste Teresa is a shell of the table-flipping, prostitution-whore-calling woman she once was, staying out of the fray and letting other people like Danielle Staub do her bidding. One might say this is growth and one might be right, but we all know dignity and maturity have no place on reality television. If I wanted to watch respectful and thoughtful people politely interact with one another, I’d put on The Great British Bake Off. Pick a lane, people!
It will be interesting to see what Bravo does with its OGs, who are some of the worst offenders when it comes to this list. While there’s something comforting about keeping around those who have been there from the beginning, getting rid of the women who aren’t pulling their weight keeps the others on their toes, especially those who lack the self-awareness to course-correct like Lisa Rinna, who does her best despite her drama-eschewing castmates. What other signs are there that a Housewife needs to go and who do you think needs to get off our screens? Let me know in the comments!
Images: Paul Morigi/Getty Images; Giphy (4); Tenor (1)
If you hung on until the end of this season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, congratulations, we made it. After the initial excitement of the Lisa Vanderpump dog drama wore off, this season felt like a never-ending game of beat around the bush, especially when it came to Dorit and PK. If you pay attention to Bravo drama outside of the actual shows, it’s been clear that Dorit Kemsley and her husband PK have been dealing with some shady financial sh*t for a while now, but it seems like the women on the show have some kind of agreement not to go near it.
When Camille Grammer started to ask questions about Dorit and PK’s money situation at the end of this season, she was immediately shut down by the group. Sorry, but as someone who has watched literally several hundred hours of Real Housewives, this would be a main plot line on any other Housewives show. We literally watched Teresa Giudice go to prison for her financial issues! I could go on about how boring RHOBH has gotten, but the real reason we’re here today is that legal proceedings have given us new information on exactly what’s going on with Dorit and PK, and it seems sketchy. As Bethenny Frankel would say, let’s mention it all.
Before I get to the new news, let’s go into the background of what’s been going on. Years ago, Dorit’s husband Paul Kemsley (PK) received a loan of $1.2 million from a man named Nicos Kirzis. PK has had lots of shady financial situations in the past, but for today, we’re just focusing on the fallout from this loan. In 2013, PK filed for bankruptcy in the UK, where he’s from. One of the main reasons people file for bankruptcy is that their debts are usually erased, but PK didn’t list Nicos Kirzis as one of his creditors in the bankruptcy filing. Therefore, that specific debt wasn’t actually affected. Whether this was an accidental oversight or something purposeful, it seems like PK done f*cked up.
In 2016, a judge in New York ruled that PK needs to pay Kirzis the $1.2 million, and last year, Kirzis filed to have that judgment applied in California, where the Kemsleys now live. In the 2018 documents, Kirzis noted that PK had paid him $250,000, but this apparently only covered the interest on the initial loan. Given the amount of this loan, I’ve got to wonder why Fofty wasn’t involved in recouping the money.
The first details about the loan from Kirzis and the subsequent judgment against PK came out in January of this year, but now action is finally being taken on the case. This week, a judge froze a bank account in Dorit and PK’s names, forbidding them from touching the money until the case is finally settled. According to The Blast, Dorit claims that the $29,000 in the account is solely her money, and has nothing to do with her husband, but she reportedly hasn’t been able to prove this.
Then, last month, reports surfaced that Dorit and PK were ordered to submit detailed financial records to a California court, so it seems like the legal system is getting serious about settling this situation. Dorit and PK are currently scheduled to appear in court in September, so it’s likely that the account will remain frozen until then, when a decision is made about whether their assets will be seized.
I don’t have as many problems with Dorit as many RHOBH viewers do, but it’s been clear for some time that her lavish lifestyle doesn’t quite add up. Just last year, PK also faced a case regarding millions of dollars he owed The Bellagio, and it’s unclear how much he had to pay out to settle that. Dorit and PK’s monstrous Beverly Hills house is currently for sale, and while Dorit claims on the show that they want a bigger yard for the kids, the whole thing stinks of money troubles. I’m not judging, just observing.
Me when Dorit shows up to every lunch in a new Balenciaga outfit:
Seriously, listening to her gloss over any issues with her and husband is almost as ridiculous as her fake British accent.
Dorit hasn’t made any comments about these latest developments, which isn’t that surprising, given that we’re dealing with an active legal case. PK however, reposted a meme from Instagram account Tank Sinatra on Friday, making fun of the situation they’re in right now:
The caption on this photo is definitely supposed to make us think that this whole story is being blown out of proportion, but I don’t really trust anything PK has to say. We’ve watched him and his wife parade around their wealth for three years on RHOBH, so one little meme isn’t going to make this all go away.
The reunion for this season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills starts next week, so I’ll be curious to see whether any of these financial issues are brought up. I’m not very hopeful, but Lisa Vanderpump won’t even be there, so they have to talk about something. It might be a while before we know all the details about how deep Dorit and PK’s financial secrets go, but like they say on Real Housewives, the truth always comes out.
Images: Shutterstock; Giphy (2)
This season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills has been slightly less of a snoozefest more dramatic than seasons past. For nine episodes (and counting) viewers have been following the saga of an adopted dog named Lucy Lucy Apple Juice (I wish I were kidding. Also, why is it not Juicy?) who mysteriously ended up at a shelter. Those who don’t watch the show (how dare you) may have seen references on social media to #puppygate and, most recently, the Goodbye Kyle Challenge and wondered WTF is going on. Because I’m such a good friend, I’m here to break down the dog drama for you and explain why I’m on Team LVP and you should be too.
The Controversy
Dorit explains at the beginning of the season that she adopted a dog from Vanderpump Dogs, an organization founded by, you guessed it, Lisa Vanderpump, aka LVP. Because the dog bit Dorit’s husband and children, she decided to give the dog to a “biz associate” who “fell in love with” Lucy according to a tweet from Dorit on February 27th.
I should’ve . When we contemplated giving Lucy back to VD a biz associate came to our home and Lucy and she fell in love with one another. I believed we were doing the right thing and I called Lisa V to tell her. I wish Lisa had just asked me to bring Lucy back at that point. https://t.co/0C9Rg94Atl
— Dorit Kemsley (@doritkemsley1) February 27, 2019
Seems reasonable enough. However, for reasons that are still unclear, Lucy was taken to a shelter and the shelter contacted LVP after scanning Lucy’s microchip. Teddi claims that she was involved in a plot, orchestrated by LVP and her employees, to expose this on camera and make Dorit look bad, an accusation LVP vehemently denies. Dorit and LVP, who have been friends for years through their husbands, seemed to patch things up at the beginning of this season.
This all changes when Dorit discovers an unflattering article about her and the Lucy situation published on Radar Online. Dorit and the rest of the cast believe that LVP was behind the article and the entire #puppygate storyline. When Kyle goes to LVP’s house to let her know this, things quickly get heated and Kyle is summarily kicked out of LVP’s house. We hear Ken, LVP’s husband, chillingly bellow “GOODBYYYYE KYYYYLE!” off-camera, launching a viral challenge on social media that is currently curing my rosacea. Even Kris Jenner is getting in on the fun. Do I need a hobby? Why yes, yes I do.
LVP’s Role
This is far from the first time that LVP has been accused of manipulating people behind the scenes. As early as season 2, Adrienne Maloof accused LVP of selling stories to Radar Online. Camille has also alleged that her explosive revelation about Taylor Armstrong’s abusive marriage that same season were encouraged by LVP. Brandi Glanville has maintained that LVP manipulated her throughout her stint on the show, instructing Brandi to reveal that Adrienne’s children were carried by a surrogate in season 3, and in season 4 coaxing Brandi to bring magazines alleging trouble in Kyle’s marriage on a cast trip to provoke Kyle. Lisa Rinna has said that it was LVP who was responsible for the entire controversy in season 6 centering on whether Yolanda Hadid really did have Lyme Disease by having Rinna suggest that Yolanda was actually suffering from Munchausen Syndrome instead.
LVP has consistently denied any involvement in these controversies, but the sheer number of these instances and similar fact patterns are, at best, highly suspicious if not totally damning. Even Kyle, her frenemy good friend, has compared being friends with LVP to “playing chess with Bobby Fischer.” Although the owner of Radar Online has said LVP is not a source for the website, it’s hard to believe LVP had nothing to do with the story getting out there.
The Divide
In appearances leading up to this season’s premiere, it’s been clear to viewers that there is a major rift between LVP and the rest of the cast and that the narrative was going to focus on LVP’s alleged misdeeds and her long-awaited comeuppance. But even if LVP is guilty of everything she has been accused of, I find myself still taking her side, something I’m not sure the other ladies or Bravo counted on when crafting the narrative arc this season. We learn early on in the season that LVP’s brother committed suicide just months before shooting began. While grief is not a valid excuse for bad behavior (a concept that Lala on Vanderpump Rules continually fails to grasp this season), it does give LVP more humanity than we’ve seen from her in previous seasons where she has maintained the proverbial stiff upper lip. For the rest of the cast to choose this time in LVP’s life to gang up on her is especially gross. I may have been able to get on board with a takedown on another season, but with all she is going through now the pile-on is backfiring.
It’s also hard to get behind Dorit when she is far from a reliable source. We can’t forget that this isn’t the first dog she adopted from Vanderpump Dogs. I can believe that a first dog didn’t work for her family, but to give up a second dog for the same reason looks a bit more suspicious. Even if we believe her, she was more than familiar with the protocol the second time around (or should have been). I know she didn’t want to pay the $5,000 penalty because she doesn’t have it didn’t read the contract carefully (if at all), but giving the dog to a business associate she can’t completely vouch for, rather than return the dog to the safe place it came from run by a vocal advocate for animal welfare, is convoluted and shady. In other words, totally on brand for her.
What Happens Now?
It’s unclear whether or not LVP will be back for season 10, though her rift with the other ladies makes it unlikely. But what is this show without her? Almost all of the memorable moments on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are the result of storylines that she (allegedly) orchestrated. Without LVP, what would we be left with—Kyle gallivanting around town with the rest of the gang in an unfortunate hat and/or muumuu and laughing at her own corny jokes? Dorit dressing like an extra on Star Trek and calling it fashion?
While it was a slight improvement to see Teddi get in the mix more this season, she remains boring and unlikeable, especially with her hypocritical inability to hold herself “accountable” until it was clear she was going to be set up this season. And no matter how hard she tries, being on time and working out do not a personality make. Erika hasn’t given us much since at least two seasons ago, and Rinna is at her best when she has a worthy opponent. Denise is a breath of fresh air, but still too new and likely can’t carry a show if her ex-husband needs to be mentioned every episode.
Ironically, some of the realest stories could come from Dorit, but she wouldn’t know authenticity if it was a Gucci jumpsuit ravaged by Gs giving her a rash. With her phony accent and tacky fashion choices meant to flaunt her wealth, her entire persona is a façade, but no one seems to confront her about it on the show. Her husband’s gambling debts are mounting and she was actually reportedly confronted in the Bahamas on a cast trip by someone about the six-figure debt she and her husband owe for her swim line that she promoted endlessly last season. But sure, let’s keep harping on a dog (who is fine, btw) and watching Dorit parade around in at least four loud designer labels at a time and say it’s a show. I guess calling out someone on their questionable finances is only okay on The Real Housewives of Atlanta, but that’s a subject for another article. The point is, until these women get real about the important sh*t going on in their lives, however unflattering, we need someone like LVP to stir the pot and give us something to watch. Otherwise, we’d look like this all season:
Images: Bravo; Giphy; doritkemsley1 / Twitter; twojudgeygirls / Instagram
