‘Vanderpump’ stars are happy to be part of Hollywood’s ‘middle class’
When “Vanderpump Rules” made its debut on Bravo in 2013, promising a mix of messy drama and mindless fun as it followed the good-looking staff of West Hollywood’s SUR, most of the cast had dreams of breaking out beyond the restaurant’s eclectically decorated walls.
“I do want to be famous,” Tom Sandoval, then a bartender at SUR, says in the show’s first episode. “I don’t know if I want Michael Jackson-type of fame, but I definitely would love to be famous.”
As “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” spinoff enters a milestone 10th season, there’s no question that Sandoval’s lofty ambitions have come to fruition for much of the cast. Their friendship woes, bad relationship behavior and drunken antics made them reality TV stars we couldn’t stop watching and — in the show’s heyday, especially — tried to witness firsthand, booking reservations in the hopes of seeing it all in action.
They’re not exactly pop culture icons, to be sure. As fellow cast member Tom Schwartz admits sheepishly on a recent afternoon, “Vanderpump Rules” has secured them status in a comfortable Hollywood tier: “Middle-class show business is a good place to be.”
All that is top of mind strolling into Schwartz & Sandy’s, the newish bar and restaurant in Los Angeles’ Franklin Village co-owned by Sandoval and Schwartz. The cocktail lounge, which opened last fall, is a full-circle evolution for the longtime friends, who spun their reality TV fame and years hustling in the service industry into careers as budding restaurateurs — before Schwartz & Sandy’s, they started as junior partners in TomTom, alongside Lisa Vanderpump and her husband Ken Todd.
Schwartz & Sandy’s is still a construction zone and a source of tension when the new season returned earlier thismonth. Still, executive producer Alex Baskin describes the new episodes as a “real renaissance” for the show, which has struggled to find its footing again after unsuccessful cast additions and major departures. (In 2020, Bravo fired original castmates Stassi Schroeder, Kristen Doute and Jax Taylor because of their past racist actions against Faith Stowers, a Black former “Vanderpump Rules” cast member.)
“I think the challenge of the previous season (Season 9) was coming out of the pandemic, and with some of the turmoil in the show, we had a hard time. It felt like we were catching the group when they were more in the state of stasis,” Baskin says. “This season is like shot out of a cannon.”
The new season follows along as some cast members navigate new business ventures and others attempt to rebuild their lives after big breakups — most notably the end of Schwartz’s marriage to Katie Maloney and Lala Kent’s split from ex-fiance Randall Emmett; the disgraced producer faces civil fraud claims and allegations of abuse toward women, as detailed in a recent L.A. Times investigation.
Saying she was “very disappointed” with the revelations and allegations against Emmett, Vanderpump noted that Kent’s experience this season is the nature of the business: “That’s what they’ve signed up for. If they’re not willing to share their life, they shouldn’t be on reality television. We’re not making some (expletive) show.”
Q: Let’s turn back the clock. What do you remember about getting the call about “Vanderpump Rules”?
Schwartz: We were all really close friends and all living together and dating before the show started. Maybe too close of friends. I mean, we were with each other every day.
I think everyone was excited about the prospect of it. But also a lot of us, we moved here to be performers, to be an actor. So we were torn. It’s not like I had a rich resume and I was gonna jeopardize my acting career, but in my mind, I was still an artist. ... There was still a kind of a stigma attached to reality TV back in 2009. And now it’s a whole different landscape.
Q: What made you say yes?
Sandoval: I did these, like, Bon Jovi videos back in the day — I was basically like Bon Jovi’s Alicia Silverstone, like what she was for Aerosmith. I would be in magazines and I’d go back to St. Louis and my friends would be like, “Oh, my gosh, Tom, I can’t believe you made it.” And it’s like, ‘Dude, no, I’m driving a ‘97 Honda Civic stick shift while I got $270 in my account. I’m driving on the 405 changing (clothes) because I’m supposed to look like a waiter for this audition, so I’m changing from swimwear because I went on a swimsuit casting for modeling. I thought it’d be exciting for people to actually see how it really is.
Schwartz: I was up early submitting them (Sandoval and Taylor) for modeling castings on Craigslist, L.A. Casting; they would give me a percentage. We had a little fake agency in our apartment ... . They would give me like (10% or 15%) — even Jax.
Q: Let’s get into this season. It’s very clear to the viewers that everyone’s in a different place now. The show opens, Tom, with the news of your divorce from Katie. Did you and Katie have discussions about how to navigate this transition in front of the cameras?
Schwartz: We didn’t. We never contrive things. We never plot certain things. Because when you do that, the producers can smell it a mile away. And it usually ends up falling flat. ... We were pretty pragmatic about our divorce. But in terms of the day-to-day emotions, I’ve never experienced such high highs and low lows as I did. Still, sometimes I could step outside of myself and appreciate just what a strange experience it is to get divorced. I never thought I would, and all of a sudden I’m a statistic, I’m a divorcee. So there were times that I kind of treated it like being in a movie. Does that sound weird?
I’ve experienced a lot of heartbreak and sadness, but that divorce, in conjunction with trying to open this spot, being under the risk of financial ruin at times, my dad almost dying — I had the conversation mid-construction about, “Do we pull the plug on my father?” right outside those doors (points to front entrance). And it was one of the hardest conversations in my life. It was just a really rough year. A lot of life came at us fast.