Lisa Vanderpump is spilling the tea on how the brand new Vanderpump Rules solid was chosen for season 12’s reboot.
“I felt that Vanderpump Rules, it was at its high, being nominated for Emmys. We had great rankings, but I felt like we told the story. And I believed sooner or later that it became a bit bit more complicated to film,” Vanderpump, 65, exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the show’s Tuesday, December 2, premiere, adding that she was honest with production about “not wanting to go down on a sinking ship.”
After news broke that Tom Sandoval was cheating on his longtime live-in girlfriend Ariana Madix with friend and fellow castmate Rachel (Raquel) Leviss, Vanderpump told Us the “dynamic” among the many OG solid — including Tom Schwartz, Katie Maloney, Scheana Shay, Lala Kent and James Kennedy — was irrevocably modified.
“People didn’t wish to film with one another,” she explained. “The dynamic was broken. It was shattered in so some ways.”
That’s when she decided it was time to revamp the show and get back to basics. When Vanderpump Rules made its debut in 2013 with additional solid members Stassi Schroeder, Jax Taylor and Kristen Doute, all the featured players worked at Vanderpump’s West Hollywood restaurant SUR as bartenders, waitresses and hostesses. The series followed the inner dynamics of 20-somethings mixing business with pleasure and the drama that comes with it. By the tip, many of the solid had left SUR to pursue other ventures after finding fame on the favored reality show.
“I believed it was time to do something recent. And I felt that we had many talks about it,” Vanderpump told Us. “The restaurant business is to truly have access to a restaurant. It’s a really unusual situation. Most individuals wouldn’t do it or couldn’t do it.”
Vanderpump added that recent castmates Marcus Johnson, Natalie Maguire, Shayne Davis, Kim Suarez, Venus Binkley, Jason Cohen, Chris Hahn, Angelica Jensen, Audrey Lingle, and Demy Selem were already working at SUR when she approached them in regards to the opportunity to star in a rebooted version of Vanderpump Rules.
“I knew we had one other group of cohesive those that had worked here for years. So I believed, ‘Okay, let’s put them on camera, see what the network thinks,’ and so they loved them, however the authenticity was key to me,” she said in regards to the recent group. “I didn’t want to begin again and take a look at to get a bunch of individuals together and have them start working for me. That wouldn’t have worked.”
She added, “There was history inside these people. And in addition, Gen Z could be very different. They’re very, very outspoken. They wish to get their opinion out.”
Vanderpump also said a serious difference between the brand new Vanderpump Rules solid and the old crew is how comfortable they’re on social media.
“I feel that social media wasn’t around once we first began Vanderpump Rules. We’d only just type of heard of Twitter. So now, they’re so used to all the pieces being on camera that cameras weren’t really a shock to them, how they were to the primary group,” she noted.
Being relaxed in front of the cameras wasn’t the one thing that shocked her in regards to the newbies.
Bravo is bringing Vanderpump Rules back for one more season — but with a serious solid overhaul. The network announced on Tuesday, November 26, that season 12 will feature Lisa Vanderpump and a brand new group of “close-knit SUR-vers who’re as complicatedly involved with each other as their iconic predecessors.” The brand new season begins production next […]
“They were available emotionally to share the vulnerabilities. There’s some very interesting personal stories here,” Vanderpump told Us. “They’re lovely, they’re excited, they’re hungry, they’re working here. I don’t actually need to do a show that type of branches off. It’s in regards to the restaurant business, and it’s about their lives and the way they work together, and I feel that’s a fantastic nucleus to have. In order that they’re there with one another, because they should be, and that drives [the] story as well.”
Vanderpump Rules season 12 premieres Tuesday, December 2 at 9 pm ET/PT on Bravo and streams the following day on Peacock.