A lot to cover today when it comes to Vanderpump Rules star Scheana Marie and her ex-boyfriend Rob Parks-Valletta.
Earlier this month, Scheana did a podcast interview, that went viral, with Juicy Scoop With Heather McDonald. During her interview, Scheana discussed her split from Rob, revealed how he dumped her, and made her now infamous claim that smoking weed is the reason she came off as being obsessed with Rob on the Bravo hit show. Gotta love that Scheana!
Well, it is now Rob’s turn as he also sat down with comedian Heather McDonald, during which he gave his side of the story when it comes to the breakup. Additionally, Rob surprisingly reveals he actually likes kissing, contrary to Scheana’s claims, plus he dished on some behind the scenes secrets, hinted at Scheana’s jealousy, and also revealed his biggest complaint about Scheana!
To kick off the show, Heather revealed Rob, 37, was actually the one who contacted her via email about a possible appearance on her podcast. Her response? “Hell yeah!”
She started out the show introducing him as the imaginary father of his imaginary daughter with Scheana, you know, Madison Marie Parks-Valletta. She has her own Instagram page now by the way.
First, Rob discussed the Vanderpump Rules cast as he has been quite vocal about not wanting to do the show, and only appearing on it to support Scheana.
“You know what, outside of the show? Yeah, they’re great. But when that show starts filming? It is a whole different world. It’s a whole different mentality,” said Rob. “They have to [bring it] because that’s what they get paid for. And that’s what makes that show so good. It’s they’re willing to say whatever and do whatever because that’s their job.”
He then goes on to hint that the producers of the show kind of forced his hand, implying Scheana could get fired if he refused to film. Yikes.
“The thing I didn’t really like about the situation is it was worded to me in a very certain way that if I didn’t do it, this would make Scheana look really bad and it could jeopardize her job,” shared Rob. “It wasn’t said as clear as that but it was definitely presented to me in that way. And at the end of the day, you have to protect your girlfriend. And her whole life is being shown on camera, and I was like you know what, I will take the leap of faith.”
Rob, who has been acting for over 10 years, reveals he asked the network to pay him but they refused. For him, he says it wasn’t about the money but more about the princicple of the situation.
“At first, I was having a battle. I was like if you want me, I’ve been acting for 10 years. As you know in this town, it’s a very hard town. You have to build up your credits. And you have a day rate, and all these things. I was like if you want me to be on camera, pay me my day rate. And they were like no, we’re not going to pay you any of that,” he said.
He dished that production does pay for some things, such as catering for the food when he invited Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval to his house for dinner, but there are many other things that they don’t pay for.
He admitted his Big Bear home IS an AirBnB rental but says the producers did not pay him for having the cast there.
Rob is asked if he and Scheana ever exchanged ‘I love yous,’ and he answered “Yeah,” which led to a question about the now infamous scene with Jax Taylor, during which he revealed he didn’t love Scheana yet.
“I never said I didn’t say that [I love her] but I said I don’t throw the love word around. I mean they also cut out all the stuff where Scheana and I are hanging out on the dock,” he said.”You have to understand that it was weeks of dealing with [the cheating accusation]. So I was pushing back at that point. I was already kind of shutting down. I was like trying to get through filming. It was hard. I look back at some of the scenes and I was like ‘did I say that?’ I was being very stubborn and I didn’t want to give [the producers] anything.”
And what about Scheana’s claims that Rob could never ever cheat on her because he actually hates kissing? Well, Rob disagreed saying he actually likes kissing.
“See there, I do like to kiss. I do like to kiss,” he repeated. “There’s like TV stuff and there’s like life stuff. I’m not a huge PDA person though, like I won’t kiss in public. I’ll hold hands. I’ll be affectionate, but in public I’m not like a big make out in the corner type of person. At the end of the day, I’m not like the sloppy make-out person.”
Rob echoes Scheana’s story that just two weeks into filming is when the other girls accused him of kissing another girl behind Scheana’s back. At this point, his manager chimes in to state that he was with Rob the night the alleged kiss took place and that no such thing happened.
“Hey everybody, I’m Aaron, Rob’s manager. So, that was Rob’s birthday and it was myself and two of his best guy friends. And the only kissing that was done was by the hostess that we all knew. She gave us each a kiss on the cheek equally. And that was it. There was no makeout session,” said his manager.
Rob, who says he’s a business owner with over 100 employees, admits he did shut down emotionally following this accusation as he feared his reputation would be tarnished, thus affecting his businesses and livelihood.
“I have a hundred employees so I have a responsibility to make sure that these people, who have families, apartments, and bills [are okay.] It was a big risk for me,” he said.
The topic then turns to Scheana once again, and Rob was quite the politician gentleman as he repeatedly defended her. While Scheana has blamed weed for her ‘Robsession,’ Rob actually has a different take. See, once that kissing accusation came up, he freaked out and shut down, and it was during this point that Scheana went into protective girlfriend mode and started going overboard singing his praises out of fear he might be seen negativily by viewers.
“I feel bad for her. I have more respect for Scheana now than even before we first started dating because at the end of the day, she saw me backing up, she saw me shutting down because I got attacked. And all she did was she went overboard on protecting me,” said Rob. “She was like, you know what, he’s perfect, he’s great. Everything is good. That’s my man and I’m protecting him. And I respect her a lot for that and the way they edited it was the way they edited it. But at the end of the day, it was a woman protecting her boyfriend who was pushing away because it was a scary world. And I respect her for having my back.”
He did however reveal his biggest complaint about Scheana was her long nails! Yep. Her nails. (We were just as disappointed!)
“The only thing I don’t like is her nails. I got used to them, but they are claws,” he shared.
He did state that Scheana had a bit of a jealous streak, which she displayed when they hung out once with his ex-fiance’s sister and her boyfriend. The Princess of Brunei‘s sister that is.
“I love Scheana. Scheana’s hysterical, but if other girls get around, she can be like ‘that is my man.’ And more power to her. She’s like ‘this is mine.’ And when you introduce an ex-girlfriend’s sister and her boyfriend, there wasn’t a lot of talking going on,” laughed Rob.
When it comes to dating, he reveals he is starting to date again following the split last October.
“I was not dating for a while. I was kind of letting everything pass and kind of seeing what Scheana would do. Now it’s sort of like, jump myself back into the game. We’re adults. We’re not just going to sit around and not do anything,” said Rob.
Finally, he stated that he wasn’t invited to the reunion and he has a theory on why. “They didn’t ask me back for the reunion. The reason is I think they know that I would go on there and I would defend Scheana,” he stated.
Below are other highlights from the over one hour long interview –
- He hyphenates his last name due to his love and respect for his step-dad whose last name is Parks. Says he’s somewhat estranged from his biological dad, who has been married at least 6 times (that he knows of). He is however close with all of his half-siblings including his famous sister, model Amber Valletta. (same dad, different moms).
- He didn’t tell Scheana he would be doing the interview. Host Heather says she called Scheana after the interview and she didn’t seem to care all that much about it.
- When he first met Scheana, who was working at a club, he asked her out and she turned him down. He said he was intrigued by the challenge. “She actually was the first girl to ever reject me. I was like ‘okay, I will get this one.’ And I was determined and I kept pursuing it,” he said. (Interesting, might explain why Scheana’s ‘Robsession’ might have turned him off!).
- Had nothing but nice things to say about Scheana’s ex-husband Mike Shay. He called Mike a “very respectful person” and a “good guy.”
- Says he’s very handy because when he bought his first home at 24, he didn’t have enough money to hire someone to fix it up so he learned to do things himself.
- He never watched Vanderpump Rules until he started dating Scheana again. The first episode he saw was the reunion confrontation between Scheana and Mike Shay, which made him more frightened to do the show.
- He doesn’t think Pump Rules cast is famous. “These people are not famous. They’re popular. They are like the popular quarterback in high school who everybody knows and they’re very popular but they never made it to the pros,” he said.
- He encouraged Scheana to do her Vegas show and to try to create a platform for herself outside of the show, citing that it’s not going to last forever. (Good point there! So many reality stars fail to capitalize on their 15 minutes).
- Likes Lala Kent’s boyfriend Randall Emmett. Hung out with Lala and Randall during NYE despite being broken up with Scheana.
- Says he understands the double standard (Randall not having to film and producers forcing his hand to film) because Randall is a bigger name and a more successful producer than he is.
- Ended things with his ex-fiance (the Princess) because at that stage in his life, he didn’t feel he was established enough to be able to provide for her like he would have wanted to. Even though she came from money, he wanted the ability to be the breadwinner.
Great interview overall, though he did come off a bit like a politician. Very diplomatic in his answers, which is probably smart. During Scheana’s interview, she mentioned Rob was also good at cracking backs, you know, when he’s not busy hanging up flat screens in 7 minutes, so Heather enlisted his back-cracking services in the video below!
Photo Credit: INSTARimages
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