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Katie Maloney opened up about her House of Stassi drama with Beau Clark during an interview last week, also sharing new details about her past marriage to Tom Schwartz and explaining why she decided to return to reality TV years after the recasting of Vanderpump Rules.
While also dishing on being joined on the show by Ariana Madix, 41, and looking ahead to season two, Katie, 40, admitted that she was “stung” by comments Beau made about how their friendship could impact Stassi Schroeder, 38, and said she didn’t realize Kristina Kelly and Taylor Strecker, 43, were skeptical about her role on the show at first.
“I found out quickly that some people had issues,” Katie noted amid an August 8 interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
As for Beau’s concerns about a potential behavioral shift from Stassi due to Katie coming back in her life, Katie said the shade was unexpected.
“Stassi and I having our friendship break that we had, that’s his wife, he’s gonna have her back, but he was pretty passionate in his feelings about me,” Katie noted. “That one stung a little bit too because I’ve always loved Beau and really gotten along with him, so kind of sucked to hear.”
During a confessional interview before the cast’s finale dinner party, amid which the ladies of the show expressed their concerns for Stassi and Beau’s marriage, Katie mentioned “how common affairs [were]” and reflected on the emotional abandonment she felt in her marriage to Tom, while also admitting to finding connection outside of the relationship.
“[I] was talking about myself,” she clarified, suspecting that viewers thought she was talking about Tom’s infidelities.
“I’ve seen it happen over and over too in people’s lives that I know. If you stop and think about it, five times out of five times, when someone ends their marriage or long-term relationship, the common thing that’s said at the end is, ‘I felt like we were roommates,’” she continued, giving a nod to a comment Beau had made about his marriage to Stassi. “And that’s when you feel emotional abandonment, and that’s when, and I’m speaking from my perspective on things and other people’s perspectives, but I think that it’s so common.”
“It wasn’t necessarily like a singular person or anything,” she clarified. “I just was aware so clearly of where I stood emotionally within my marriage and relationship, and some people choose to explore that well out without exiting the relationship armors, because that’s a more difficult thing to do. I recognized that that was my time.”
Although Katie was hesitant to get back into reality TV after Pump Rules, she said that her gut told her “this [was] the time” once she was approached to appear on Stassi’s show. Still, she wouldn’t have agreed to play a role if it weren’t for “the people that are involved.”
“Knowing Stassi’s history with reality TV and her perspective on it, how she wanted to navigate doing the show was something that I really aligned with,” she explained. “Especially coming off of a show like Vanderpump Rules, which was very successful for a long time, but really did kind of, at the end, take a toll on me, I just knew that if I was going to return, it would have to be for something that felt very different.”
In addition to Katie being featured on House of Stassi, Ariana was seen as well, as she and Katie filmed at their sandwich shop, Something About Her.
“I was never going to press [Ariana] or ask her to be part of it beyond that, but I was just happy that she was so supportive,” Katie shared of her cameo. “Also, we worked so hard to get our sandwich shop open, so it was important that for the first time us filming there, that she was there for that.”
As she looked ahead to House of Stassi season two, confirming she’d “love to return,” Katie said she would want to “repair and build some of the fractures in the relationships that I have,” and build upon her reconciliation with Stassi.
“[I want to] grow my relationship with Stassi from where we are now in this season of life that’s so different than the one that we met each other in,” she shared. “I just am excited to see where that goes and takes us.”
House of Stassi season one is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+.