Credit: Todd Williamson/Bravo, Instagram
Lala Kent doesn’t think that the Vanderpump Rules cast bullied Jo Wenberg, but she does think Katie Maloney needs to lay off a bit.
Following last week’s episode of the show, which saw Jo enduring an awkward encounter with the ladies of the show, Lala, 33, admitted that both Katie Maloney, 37, and Scheana Shay, 38, were a bit tough on Jo. She also explained why she respects Tom Schwartz‘s former love interest, and Scheana defended her antics against Jo, targeting her for her knowledge of Tom Sandoval‘s affair with Rachel “Raquel” Leviss, 29.
“I remember them being pretty hard on Jo. There were some jokes about Jo,” James Kennedy, 32, recalled on the March 26 episode of the Vanderpump Rules: After Show.
According to Lala, however, they “do that to everybody.”
“We’re a tough crowd… It’s scary,” she admitted. “[But] I can’t say that we’ve bullied her. We know how that word sits with me.”
That said, Lala does think that Katie — and Scheana — have been a bit rough on Jo.
“Katie for sure needs to disengage in the comments section,” she stated. “I think she takes it way too far. Jo has a very small platform. Katie is a known person with millions of followers. Let’s not do that to Jo. Let’s not do that to anybody. We’re not trolls. No one’s, well, besides Scheana trying to take her hat off, I guess she is bullying her a little bit right now.”
“I actually have a little bit of respect for Jo because if I had a hat on, and someone came up and tried to remove it, I think that’s the one time that I’d pop a mother*cker,” she noted.
Looking back at her own introduction to the Pump Rules cast, Brittany Cartwright, 35, said she remembers walking into SUR for the first time in her little romper.
“Scheana and Katie were sitting out there, who had been very nice to me, but even just that walk in was so intimidating for me so I get how Jo would be feeling for sure,” she confessed.
Although Scheana insisted she’s no “mean girl,” she said she was “on one” that night, having just gone off Zoloft and felt that she could drink.
“I’m not someone who attacks someone’s appearances so I think that was maybe my way of trying to be like, ‘I don’t like you,’ but also give some unsolicited advice in a weird way where I’m just like, ‘If you’re a hairstylist, why are you always wearing a hat?'” Scheana explained, adding that she acted “sh*tty” towards Jo because she was “complicit” in Sandoval and Raquel’s affair.
“No one deserves to be bullied. However, people deserve to be held accountable for their actions, and Jo drove with Raquel to Big Bear and then left Raquel with Tom Sandoval in Big Bear. You’re gonna get some sh*t from us when we know you were covering for her,” she continued.
And Brittany agreed.
“I don’t think she should automatically expect that all the girls are just going to welcome her with open arms after being Kristen’s friend who just kind of sneaked in. Obviously, don’t be mean, but she can’t expect you guys to run over and give her a big hug or something,” she shared.
As a former friend of Jo’s, Kristen Doute, 41, recalled Jo’s bizarre reaction to the reveal of Sandoval and Raquel’s relationship.
“Jo sent a group chat to Ariana, Tom Sandoval, and Raquel, and said, ‘I love you all. I care about all of you and it’s really difficult for me right now,'” she revealed as Scheana described her as “unhinged.”
“And people say I made it about me,” Scheana added.
Kristen then said that right before Jo started sleeping with Schwartz, she was texting Katie, saying, “I love you my fellow Justin Bieber lover.”
“She would never reach out to Tom and say, ‘Can I cut your hair?’ She would reach out to Katie, even when they were already divorced, ‘I would love to cut Tom’s hair. Katie, you mean the world to me, blah blah blah.’ Of course, everyone’s gonna feel the feelings that they feel. It’s like Tom Sandoval. You made these choices, you continue to make the choices, you’re continuing to act the way you act.”
Although Kristen doesn’t have much sympathy for Jo and how she was treated by the Pump Rules cast, she did admit that she felt “slightly bad” that Schwartz made her feel like she was his girlfriend and then was “f*cking everyone else, including my friend Lena who owns the hair salon.”
During another Pump Rules: After Show moment, Lala said Jo’s meltdown at Hotel Ziggy was “way sad.”
“She was like hyperventilating,” Lala explained.
Meanwhile, after Ariana asked why she was so upset, Katie suggested it was probably “nothing.”
“She tends to have these moments where that it’s kind of nothing,” she shared, adding, “If you can’t hang, there’s the door, baby.”
In their own segment, the guys spoke out, with Jax Taylor, 44, saying he’d be “petrified” to be around “those girls.”
“You know how they hype each other up. They all get in each other’s heads and make something out of nothing. No girl is gonna be okay in that. Many have tried, all have failed,” he stated.
As for Schwartz, he defended his former flame, saying that she was dealing with things the girls were unaware of.
“There was some deeper stuff going on in her life that wasn’t talked about, which was the catalyst but that sure as heck didn’t help,” he noted.
Vanderpump Rules season 11 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on Bravo.