For the past few weeks, one question has started to haunt me as I watch Vanderpump Rules. No, not “why am I still watching this drivel” (though that’s a close second). Instead, I’m increasingly concerned about Tom Schwartz and his drinking. Don’t get me wrong—I understand that this cast is pretty much contractually obligated to get shitfaced on camera. And I also know that drunken live footage is universally unflattering, and that’s why I don’t let my friends post Insta stories anymore. But even so, Schwartz has been toeing the line between occasionally sloppy party boy and straight-up hard to watch. I did a little digging to see how worried we should be about Schwartz’s drinking.
Part 1: A Brief History of Schwartz’s Drinking
TBH my memories of early Schwartz are as follows: dry spell, panic attack, afraid of commitment. So let’s skip ahead to last season, for which Schwartz was problematically drunk roughly 90% of the time. Notable drunk moments include Schwartz screaming at Katie and calling her a bitch on their pre-wedding Vegas trip, vowing not to go through with the wedding, and then waking up as though everything was completely fine. Also, let’s not forget how so many of these drunken pre-wedding fights began. Schwartz cheated on Katie with a girl in Vegas (a VPR rite of passage, I guess). You can take a guess as to whether alcohol was involved there too. Overall, Schwartz came into season 6 with a definite reputation as a heavy drinker. But for obvious reasons, the viewer’s focus was less on his drinking and more on why TF the wedding wasn’t cancelled.
Part 2: Tom “I Have No Recollection Of That” Schwartz
From episode 2 of this season, we were seeing a whole new side to drunk Schwartz. Namely, we see Schwartz doing what you do every Friday night and calling up his bestie Jax and sobbing about how he has no idea what he’s doing in life. Relatable? Yes. But also a conversation that makes you hope Schwartz is getting a redemption arc this season, starting by sobering up. We get the opposite.
Starting in episode 4, drunk Schwartz drama starts to really heat up. Lala shares with the group that (married) Schwartz made out with her friend a few weeks ago. Schwartz doesn’t remember this, but doesn’t really claim it didn’t happen, either. He seems to find this a sufficient explanation to his wife. Even more troublingly, when Katie responds to the incident with reasonable rules like “stop taking shots” and “this is the last time you’re using ‘I have no recollection’ as an excuse,” he acts like she’s putting him on house arrest. Uh, no. Even if you weren’t making out with random girls when you got blackout, that’s still a perfectly reasonable request. In true Schwartz form, FYI, he chases with conversation with a round of absinthe shots.
Part 3: Less Cheating, More Drinking
I’ll spare you the details of every time we see too-drunk Schwartz fucking up, but here are the highlights. Katie continues to plead with him about his drinking. Schwartz continues to tell her to fuck off and refer to their marriage as a prison sentence. Gradually, the marriage dynamic improves, but the drinking doesn’t. One night, he gets so wasted he can’t make it home. Another, he’s drinking straight from the bottle at 3am the night before an important TomTom meeting. (He of course shows up late and reeking of alcohol and possibly tweaked out on coke.) In Mexico, Schwartz reaches the height of sad-drunk aesthetic. He’s mainlining tequila, he wanders into a different resort, he nearly pukes in a golf cart, and he tries to get Kristen and James to ride bikes with him at 7am. If that isn’t the saddest lost-drunk-boy thing you’ve ever heard, IDK what is.
*rare footage of Scheana making a good point*
Part 4: Comments From The ‘VPR’ Cast
The couple spoke to US Weekly back in January, when Lala first aired the rumors of Schwartz’s post-marriage makeout. When asked directly whether he has a drinking problem, Schwartz vehemently denied it. (The direct quote here is “I don’t have a drinking problem, I’m not in denial or anything.” Which like…no one had asked whether you were in denial, but now that you mention it…)
He goes on to admit that he has “a tendency to push to the extreme” and that he’s “got to chill with the shots.” Katie, while standing 100% behind her husband in a way that’s somewhere between heartwarming and enabling, chimes in with her very real concerns here too. “I don’t want to have to worry about his safety,” she says, adding that it’s “really serious if you’re black-out drunk and know what has happened.”
Admittedly, most of my weekends could be classified as “really serious” by that measure. But Katie, in pointing out her genuine fear for his safety, is pointing to something a little darker. In Mexico, Schwartz slurs reassurance over and over that he’s fine. Katie no longer even tries to make him a presentable companion, or bothers getting annoyed. “You didn’t know where you were,” she tells him. “That’s not fine.” And when you’re speaking to your 35-year-old husband, that’s absolutely correct.
*Schwartz, nodding thoughtfully*
Before I wrap this up, I do want to mention that I think Katie’s been an absolute angel this season. And if Schwartz is struggling with his drinking as much as it appears, I’m truly sorry for them both. Ever since Schwartz was weeping in the corner of Jeremy’s birthday party, I’ve had a nagging fear that seems to keep coming true every episode. Even though Schwartz seems at the point with his drinking where he can tell that it’s making him unhappy, and even actively tries to stop (like in Vegas), he doesn’t seem to be able to. I hope he’s faring better in his off-camera time, and I hope that Lisa maybe stations him somewhere other than the bar for his work at TomTom.
Images: Giphy (4)
I only started following Lala Kent on Instagram yesterday, and boy, what a payoff. In the past 24 hours, she’s already given me enough fodder for not one, but two articles. First, there was the thirsty post of the bouquet that she captioned “Thank you R.E. “. We all obviously took R.E. to mean Randall Emmett, Lala’s rumored married boyfriend since last season. Well now, Lala’s back with another Instagram story, and I’ve got to tell you, this has really changed my opinion. At first I thought Lala was out here, playing up her illicit relationship for publicity. Now I think she’s completely fabricating this relationship that does not actually exist for publicity. Take a look at this picture and you’ll see why.
Let’s cover the obvious first. NOBODY TALKS LIKE THIS. Nobody writes like this; nobody talks like this; this is not a letter that any person would naturally compose. “You’re my angel and warrior”? “I am blessed to have you as my partner and lover”?? “LOVE, YOUR MAN AND BOY TOY”??? Come the fuck on. Nobody, especially not a man who’s trying to hide his affair from his wife and kids, would willingly write this. You know what it does sound like, though? Exactly what a woman who’s writing a fake love letter to herself would say, or what a man would say under duress with a pen taped to his hand and a gun to his head. Honestly, either scenario is equally plausible at this given point.
I also thought, upon first glance, that the handwriting was a little suspicious. One, it’s pretty neat—a little too neat, perhaps? Is that sexist, though? IDK. Two, and most importantly, take a fucking look at the first supposed love letter from her supposed lover.
TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SETS OF HANDWRITING. You don’t exactly need a degree to discern that. And then reconsider the two messages. “I love you, I’m so proud of you” vs. “I am blessed to have you as my partner and lover”… the same person didn’t write those. In scientific terms, there is just no fucking way. Wildly different handwriting, wildly different messages—it doesn’t add up. We’re talking two different unsubs people. And at this point, I doubt this supposed “R.E.” wrote either card. I feel like Lala completely just made this whole relationship up to stay relevant and is sending herself flowers just to post about them. Which is pretty sad. I saw a girl do that once with a wedding ring in an episode of Catfish—that’s the level she’s on right now. She is no better than people who pretend to be complete strangers on the internet to trick other people into relationships with them. Just think about that for a sec. That is pretty fucking low. Somebody call Nev and Max—we’ve caught a live one.
Now this is the last I want to hear about Lala’s fictional married boyfriend. If you need me, I’ll be tailoring my resume to apply for a position at CSI.
It’s not enough for Lala Kent to be returning to Vanderpump Rules; this bitch has been out here thirsting for publicity like it’s nobody’s business. Don’t @ me, I am acutely aware that I am providing her with said publicity after which she is thirsting. It’s called symbiosis; look it up. But what I don’t understand is Lala’s methods for acquiring said publicity. I guess her publicist (can a third-rate character on a second-tier reality TV show afford a publicist?) is really taking the whole “all press is good press” adage seriously, because Lala is flaunting her rumored affair on Instagram for press. And like, it’s working, but I still think it’s tacky as hell.
Anyone with the neurological capacities to type in “Lala Kent married boyfriend” into Google knows her married boyfriend is rumored to be film producer Randall Emmett. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of him; according to Wikipedia, his best-known films are Silence (2016), Lone Survivor (2013), and 2 Guns (2013). So yeah. M. Night Shyamalan he is not (yeah IDK, that’s the first movie director I came up with off the top of my head). On Tuesday, someone Tweeted at us that Lala straight-up posted a picture of herself with Randall to her IG story. I appreciated and noted the tip, but sadly, she took it down before I could verify it for myself. I am a real journalist, DAD. But Wednesday night, Lala was not so lucky. I nabbed this screengrab of a video of a vase of flowers:
All right, so R.E. is obviously (reportedly) Randall Emmett. (Don’t sue me for libel, kthx.) If you Google “Randall Emmett married”, the first result is “Ambyr Childers,” so he’s presumably still married in the eyes of the law. So we all on the same page here? Lala is just brazenly out here, posting pics of her married boyfriend and the gifts he give her to her Instagram And, honestly, I am without speech. Give me a minute.
I know Lala is a professional thot, but have you no shame? Good god, woman. I’m guessing at this point Randall’s wife is well aware of the affair, but holy shit. Could you chill? Do you have to be like a middle school girl, professing her love for her boyfriend du jour all over the internet? This is like when I used to put my crush’s initials in my AIM away message, except my crush didn’t know who I was, I didn’t have hundreds of thousands of AIM buddies, and OH YEAH my middle school crush wasn’t married.
This is so tasteless. The man has kids, FFS. Of course this is all his fault for cheating and he’s a scumbag and I’m not downplaying that, but at the same time, if you (Lala) are going to try to play stepmom to these girls later on, maybe stop posting pictures of your gifts from daddy when daddy was still married to mommmy. I’M JUST SAYING. What happened to the good old days when people tried to keep their affairs secret? That’s why they’re called affairs in the first place… otherwise they’d just be relationships. This is a whole new level of sidepiece culture, and I am not loving it. *Adds this to the ever-growing list of reasons why I’m single and plan to remain that way forever*
Yeah, can I get a cleanup on Aisle 2? Because this is a mess.
