Stassi Schroeder is reacting to rumors surrounding her status as a New York Times Best Selling author.
After it was suspected that the Vanderpump Rules alum’s second book, Off with My Head: The Definitive Basic B-tch Handbook to Surviving Rock Bottom, had landed on the New York Times Best Sellers list only after a series of potentially suspicious bulk orders, Stassi addressed the topic on her podcast.
“I’m being made fun of because I can’t afford a 200-person wedding, but I can afford to buy thousands of books?” Stassi wondered on the latest episode of The Good, the Bad, and the Baby, giving a nod to the backlash she faced after uninviting certain Pump Rules cast members from her and Beau Clark‘s May wedding in Rome, Italy.
According to Stassi, questions were raised about the dagger icon seen next to her name and book title — even though her first book, Next Level Basic: The Definitive Basic Bitch Handbook, also received the designation, as did other publications on the list she shared last month.
“I thought, which is funny, I thought that the dagger was the Simon & Schuster emblem. That’s what I’ve been thinking the last three years of my life. So then when I see that people are saying [I tricked my way onto the list] I’m like ‘What?’ I called my publishers immediately and I”m like, ‘What the f-ck is this? Why are people saying this?’” Stassi recalled. “And they go, ‘The New York Times list puts a dagger next to it.’ So they’re not saying that you bought your way onto it. It’s like, someone could have.”
While the dagger could be an indicator of trickery, Stassi said that sudden bulk orders of her book weren’t the result of her buying her way onto the list. Instead, they were simply the result of the events she hosted upon its release.
“I did a Premiere Live signing that was only supposed to get 200 people. In order to watch it and ask questions, you had to buy a book. We only expected to have 200 people. We had I think 900, either over 900 or right under 900 people. So then Premiere Live had to buy so much more in bulk, and that is why there is a f-cking dagger right there. Also, I did book signings. You have to buy a bunch of f-cking books in order to have book signings, and I had a thousand people come to one of mine in Illinois,” she explained.
Understandably, Stassi was disappointed by the speculation.
“Knowing how hard I worked on this book and the amount of time and thoughtfulness and effort I put into it and I was so excited when I made that list because it was like, ‘Wow, I did it.’ And then to just come back home to see that people are trying to take that and trash it… I succeeded on my own.”
As Stassi revealed, her team was wiped out following her June 2020 firing from Pump Rules, which came after she found herself in a racism scandal. So, when it came to putting out a second book, she did so with her assistant and her husband.
“And when I made the New York Times Best Sellers List again, it was a moment of being like, ‘Wow, I can do stuff without all these people helping me.’ I did this on my own, and it felt like a way greater accomplishment,” she admitted.
In early May, after the Best Sellers list was revealed, Stassi shared a video of herself reacting to the news.
Also, Stassi added, “most of the books on that list have the dagger because they are doing things like that, live signings or Premiere Signings. That’s what happens. That’s literally how it works.”
Stassi also took to her Intagram page on June 3rd to share more photos from her wedding in Rome.
Vanderpump Rules was renewed for a 10th season by Bravo in May.