Lisa Rinna is telling all about her experiences on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills which apparently includes throwing shade at some of her former costars.
After confirming her exit last week after eight seasons, Rinna is taking aim at Lisa Vanderpump‘s supposed calculating behavior, the interference of producers, and more as she also looks forward to season 13, revealing which cast members she believes will have a “tough” season and sharing what needs to happen to maintain the show’s success.
While looking back at the season seven moment in which she asked Dorit Kemsley if people were doing “coke in [her] bathroom” during a January 13 interview with Interview magazine, Rinna said she posed the question only “because they had been accusing me over my f-cking pill bag.”
“It was Vanderpump who wanted this narrative out there that I was a pill head, or whatever. And Dorit had come on as her friend. And that’s how it played out,” she explained.
But, as RHOBH fans well know, things ultimately went south between Vanderpump and Dorit after Lisa accused Dorit of abandoning a puppy she adopted from her rescue center, Vanderpump Dogs, in the scandal now known as “Puppy Gate.” And, while she admitted to playing into the drama at first because she was “new at the time” and “took the bait,” Rinna ultimately called Vanderpump out for seemingly staging the entire fiasco to promote the center, which was eventually used as a launching spot for her short-lived Vanderpump Dogs spinoff.
“I just called her out on it. [Kyle Richards] called her out. [Teddi Mellencamp] called her out. She and I always had a really great cat-and-mouse game that we played. We were really great together. And then once I really got caught onto what she does, I wasn’t having it,” she explained.
While Rinna claims she didn’t learn the supposed ways of Vanderpump until season nine, she noticed meddling from producers just as she joined RHOBH for season five.
Looking back at her messy feud with Kim Richards in Amsterdam, which came after Kim suggested that something was going on at home with Rinna’s husband, Harry Hamlin, Rinna suggested producers encouraged Kim to do something to trigger her.
“They got in her ear, and they basically said, ‘We need you to do something,’ that’s my guess. ‘We need you to set Rinna off,'” Rinna suspected. “I’m just glad I didn’t f-cking strangle her, because I cross over that table, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘Don’t touch her. You’ll go to jail, and you’re in fucking Amsterdam. You’ll never get out.’ That’s what stopped me.'”
Rinna also suggested producers may have been involved, along with Vanderpump and Kyle, in the Munchausen drama of season six, which pulled Yolanda Hadid‘s Lyme disease struggles into question.
‘I don’t know if it was producers, but it was Vanderpump and a little bit of Kyle. And I didn’t realize it at the time because they’re so f-cking good at it. So I just jumped right into it,” Rinna admitted. “Vanderpump would call me in the morning for days and feed… They feed you. It’s like a f-cking brainwashing.”
After shading Vanderpump as “a p-ssy” for failing to show up to the reunion after the “Puppy Gate” scandal of season nine, Rinna named Garcelle Beauvais and Sutton Stracke as the cast members who will have the most trouble with season 13.
“They’re going to have to show up and work … Who’s going to do the work over there? Who’s going to say, ‘I heard you said this about me?’ I don’t think you can count [Erika Jayne]. Because Erika shouldn’t have to do anything,” Rinna explained. “Unfortunately, they don’t have much to give. So I don’t know what’s going to happen over there.”
While a number of other women are also rumored to be returning, including Kyle, Rinna said Kyle can’t be counted on to stir the pot because she “wants to be liked too much” and is “too worried about what people think about her,” and noted that Crystal Kung-Minkoff is “too young” to understand the game.
“[Kyle] just wants to be liked too much,” said Rinna. “I love her, but I say that to her face. She’s too worried about what people think about her.”
She then said that Dorit’s “got it in her” and admitted that Garcelle and Sutton are “sharks.”
“They just need to be who they really are. They are that, but they just have to let go of this facade they created,” she advised.
In the months since filming wrapped on season 12, there have been swirling rumors in regard to potential former housewives returning. However, in Rinna’s mind, she believes an all-new cast would be better.
“Maybe they’ll bring in a great wildcard or somebody unknown. That’s what they need. I think doing that is better than revisiting somebody from the past,” she stated. “[But] if worse comes to worst and they got nothing five weeks or six weeks into filming, they should call [Brandi Glanville]. That will be an immediate fix, right?”
Although Rinna didn’t have a relationship with Brandi when she was on the show, she confirmed they do today and revealed she’s also in a decent place with Kim.
“I haven’t seen her in a while. [But] last time [things between us] were fine,” she shared.
As for former castmates Vanderpump and Denise Richards, Rinna said their relationships are “nonexistent” before adding that things are “good” between her and Andy Cohen.
She then noted that when it comes to the RHOBH cast, she doesn’t “need to hang out with anybody.”
“I have my relationship with Erika off-camera, and that’s great. Dorit and Kyle, too,” she explained.
Also, during the interview, Rinna was asked about who she believes are the G.O.A.Ts of the Real Housewives.
“Nene Leakes … Bethenny Frankel … I think Kelly Dodd was great … [Sonja Morgan] and [Ramona Singer] … And Kenya Moore. [Teresa Giudice],” she replied.