‘IT’S TIME FOR ME TO MOVE ON’
Lisa Vanderpump explains why
She’s recovering from a cold, but Lisa Vanderpump is as serenely glamorous as ever, sipping tea and eating raisin toast on a couch in her impossibly grand (and pink) Beverly Hills mansion, Villa Rosa. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills viewers know the estate well, but today there are no cameras as Vanderpump opens up for the first time about leaving the hit Bravo reality series – and about coping with the loss of her brother Mark, who died by suicide in April 2018 following a battle with depression. “I realised the fragility of life,” says Vanderpump, 59. “For me, that meant dismissing negativity and focusing on the things that I really want to achieve while I’m still here.”
Vanderpump, who has two children, Pandora, 33, and Max, 27, with Ken Todd, her husband of 37 years, say she’s now ready for a clean slate. “I had a great time on the Housewives,” says the restaurateur and activist, who has found a new focus in her work for her Vanderpump Dogs Foundation and LGBTQ causes. “But I needed to keep myself buoyant.”
Just three months after the death of Mark, who was 59 and her only sibling, an emotionally fragile Vanderpump began filming the ninth season of the show she helped launch in 2010. “If I had my choice, I would have just wallowed in grief,” she admits. “I was trying to function, but I just wasn’t ready.”
So when a flabbergasting dog rescue mishap set off a chain of events culminating in fellow cast members Lisa Rinna, Teddi Mellencamp and Kyle Richards accusing her of being a liar and manipulator, Vanderpump reached breaking point. “I’ve been in a position where the whole cast has been against me before,” she says. “But this time, I was just done. To deal with them all screaming and shouting at me, I just thought, what the hell am I doing? I’m trying to pull myself together.”
In fact, Vanderpump at times felt overwhelmed by grief. “After my brother died I was in a very dark place,” she explains. “I felt like a relationship had been ripped out of my arms. I sat in my living room for months, just staring at the walls. I was crying every single day. And I just needed the support of friends. I know if I had a friend who went through a similar circumstance I would go above and beyond to make sure I was there.”
Her decision became obvious. “Everything just shifted in my brain,” she says. “The show was no longer about documenting my life and all the things I was doing. It was documenting a ridiculous argument that shouldn’t have even happened. Suddenly all the things I was involved in [outside the show] became of the utmost importance to me. And so that was it. I decided it was over.”
Vanderpump threw herself into her activism. Since its inception in 2016, the
Vanderpump Dog Foundation has rescued an estimated 1300 dogs. Along with executive director John Sessa, Vanderpump helped push the US Congress to pass the PACT Act, which makes animal torture a federal crime. Additionally, she advocated for a resolution urging nations to prohibit trade in dog and cat meat. “I hope [this work] will be my legacy,” says Vanderpump, who also supports the Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention among LGBTQ youth. Despite the Housewives drama, Vanderpump says she holds no ill will towards the reality series she helped turn into one of the most successful in the Bravo franchise. “There were some things that were very difficult to cope with,” she admits, “but I had some wonderful moments and laughs and giggles. Not to mention that having the vehicle of a reality show helped with awareness for [my causes].”
Vanderpump doesn’t speak regularly to any of her former cast members, including Richards, but when her mother Jean, died unexpectedly in June at the age of 84, “a couple of people reached out”.
These days, with the help of a ‘tight circle’ of friends and family, including her brother’s two sons, Vanderpump is finding light amid the darkness of losing her brother and mum. “Ultimately life is about saying goodbye,’’ she says. “Even in the depths of grief I try to see the bright side.”
When it comes to Housewives, Vanderpump jokes “never say never” about a potential return.
“I don’t look at the show as a negative experience, but I needed to regroup and take stock of my life. And it was time for me to move on. I still have Vanderpump Rules, and I’m developing more restaurants and two other TV projects. I’m excited about the future,” Vanderpump says. “I have absolutely no regrets.”
“Everything just shifted in my brain”
– Lisa Vanderpump