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Lisa Rinna addressed Kathy Hilton‘s meltdown in Aspen in her latest book, You Better Believe I’m Going To Talk About It.
As she also slammed Andy Cohen, 57, as “so shady” for leaking her text messages in his 2023 publication, The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up, admitted to burning the book in her fireplace, and called him out for not having her back, the 62-year-old Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum reflected on the “sketchy” behavior of production and accused the network of protecting Kathy, 66, and giving her special treatment.
“Here’s the true story: I witnessed Kathy’s bad behavior over the course of filming that season, especially on our trip to Aspen, and I think the Hiltons had tried to hide it. That had been their goal the entire time. They spent years and years covering it up, and all of a sudden, I’ve called it out on national TV,” Lisa wrote. “But I wasn’t going to protect her. I was going to call her out on it, and that is what I did.”
According to Lisa, Kathy returned to the house they were staying at from the club on the night in question and “had an absolute meltdown in the dark,” during which she threatened to “destroy” her sister, Kyle Richards, 57.
“There were no lights on. She flipped out, was pounding on the walls, screaming and yelling, and absolutely losing her f*cking sh*t, and it scared me,” Lisa revealed. “I had never ever had anybody behave like that in front of me in my entire life, and it freaked me the f*ck out. [So] I spoke of it, and I was villainized for that.”
Although Lisa didn’t understand why she became the bad guy at first, she now realizes that she fell victim to “the Hilton-Richards machine.”
“[It] has really done a lot of work to keep that undercover; they were not about to let Lisa Rinna f*ck that up. Bravo went along with it, and so did Andy Cohen,” she noted. “I went down for it and took the fall because they’d spent too many years and too much money protecting their name.”
Reflecting on the season 12 reunion, Lisa knew she had reached the end of her run on the show when she saw Kathy’s publicist, Andy Gelb.
“He’s big-time. Bravo must have allowed it because, normally, we were not allowed to have anyone there with us. She had her weighted security blanket, and I had nobody,” Lisa shared. “They were coming for me. So my hackles went up, my claws came out, and I began preparing for war.”
Following the taping of the reunion, Lisa sent a message to her producers and to Andy, informing them that she would not be returning to the show for season 13.
Months later, that message turned up in Andy’s memoir.
“Andy had given me a heads-up that I was in his new book. When anyone gives you a heads-up that you’re in their book, you know you’re f*cked. He’d never given me one before, and I’d been in his other books. Right, so he included my personal text messages,” she explained. “It was so shady, so Andy, so Bravo, so unnecessary.”
“After I read it, I was so mad, I threw his book in my fireplace and watched it burn gleefully,” she added.
Then speaking of the way in which production included her message in season 13, Lisa felt that it was their way of “[getting] back at [her].”
“It was so sketchy of them to post my private resignation letter. But that’s the game they play, and they play it with everybody,” she reasoned.
While Lisa mentioned that she “brought that show so much” and “gave [her] all,” she recalled no one having her back.
“Nobody fought for me. Nobody said, ‘Oh my God, please stay! Don’t go!’ I was pretty much left for dead by everyone who had been in my life for eight years … Nobody had my back, not even Andy. Especially Andy,” she stated.
Lisa Rinna was featured in a full-time role on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills from season five through season 12.