Kristen Doute has been having good days and bad days in the weeks since she was let go from the cast of Vanderpump Rules due to allegations of racist behavior.
In her very first interview since Bravo announced her firing, along with the firings of Stassi Schroeder, Max Boyens, and Brett Caprioni, Kristen shared her reaction to her dismissal from the series and responded to claims of having called the cops on Faith Stowers before revealing why she believes the network should have filmed their racism drama.
“The first couple of weeks were really emotional. I was really all over the place,” Kristen admitted on Hollywood Raw, revealing that she did plenty of “drinking and crying” during the moments that followed her firing.
“Some days I wake up crying and have to force myself out of bed… I would be lying if I said it wasn’t hard to lose my job and essentially lose everything I’ve worked for. It was really f**king hard,” she continued.
After allowing herself to grieve the loss of her Pump Rules gig, Kristen began having conversations with friends in an effort to educate herself on the topic of racism and unconscious bias.
“I was having conversations with a lot of my friends and specifically, to be honest, my black friends, and they told me to shut up and listen,” she explained.
Prior to Kristen’s firing, Faith revealed her former co-star had gone to the police in an effort to have her arrested for crimes she didn’t actually commit, including drugging men and stealing from them. However, according to Kristen, Faith’s account isn’t completely true.
“It wasn’t that I called the police on her or called 911 or gave her information. I actually called a tip line and left my name and number in which no one ever even called me back and nothing happened,” Kristen alleged.
After noting that the details of her actions against Faith, the only black cast member on the show, didn’t matter at this point, Kristen said she “never meant to hurt anyone.”
In addition to taking some time out to listen and learn, Kristen has been donating, personally, and also working with a number of black artists on her clothing line, James Mae & Co.
Kristen is also back in touch with her former best friend, Stassi, who announced that she and her fiancé, Beau Clark, are expecting their first child, a baby girl, in January just days after getting the boot from Bravo in June.
“We’ve definitely been in contact more than we had been. And I’m beyond, I mean, I’m sorry that this is all happening at this time. But I’m so happy for her and Beau,” Kristen gushed. “So I’m just trying to be there to support her and she’s been doing the same for me. I’ve seen her a couple of times and I just want to keep her calm and keep her happy and keep the baby healthy and happy.”
Days after Faith went public with her claims against her, Kristen learned she had been fired from Pump Rules during a phone call with her attorney.
“If the phone call I got had been five minutes later I probably would have gotten it from the news. My lawyer actually called me and dropped the note to me that I was no longer going to be on the show. I never got to speak to anyone, which was really hard because I would have liked to have a conversation and in turn, I wish they would have talked about this publicly,” Kristen recalled.
According to Kristen, Bravo missed a big opportunity to offer viewers a chance to learn and grow when they fired her and her cast mates ahead of season nine.
“It would have been a lot smarter for them to film about this. This was a perfectly wide-open door for Bravo to take the initiative and have this conversation,” she said. “It would have helped me [and] I think it would have helped other people on the cast, those that were let go [and] those that were not. It would have given us a platform to work together to do more charity work [and] push people to do better rather than saying, ‘We don’t like that mistake you made so therefore, you are canceled.’”
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