‘Vanderpump Rules’ Was All the Rage at BravoCon

When the Vanderpump Rules cast and crew gathered this summer to film the most recent season of the hit reality series, they were at the center of the zeitgeist. Coming off of a months-long news cycle revolving around Scandoval, fans, viewers, and newcomers who had taken up an interest in the celebrity gossip couldn’t get enough of every little tidbit of information surrounding what may or may not be happening while the popular cast filmed Season 11.

Paparazzi shadowed them all over Los Angeles with photos popping up in TMZ and other celebrity news sites, fans lined up outside Lisa Vanderpump’s West Hollywood restaurants when they caught wind the show was filming at those locations, and fan accounts shared rumors and details from what cast members were posting on their social media accounts. While Vanderpump Rules has long been a popular, highly watched show on Bravo, this most recent season was filmed under a microscope in a way that it had never been before. 

On Friday, the network released a short clip of what’s to come in the new season at the Vanderpump Rules cast panel at BravoCon, announcing the premiere as sometime in January. Viewers see DJ James Kennedy drawing a line in the sand, literally, when the cast is at the beach and Ariana Madix sits on one side while Sandoval stands on the other. Another scene seemingly shows Lisa Vanderpump pleading with Scheana Shay and Lala Kent about Sandoval’s state of affairs: “To lose his best friend, his business is up the creek, everything has gone wrong in his life.” It cuts to a moment of Sandoval screaming and crying, then separately a scene where he hugs Scheana after the two appear to have a conversation.

“If you’re going to be friends with him, she’s going to fucking cut you off, so think about your next move very carefully,” Katie Maloney can be heard saying to someone as the camera shows Ariana crying. The next clip is Ariana yelling at Sandoval, “Ruin my life, my home, and then attempt to kill my fucking dog. My lawyer will be dealing with you.” This was the first time the cast saw the teaser, which didn’t include appearances from Tom Schwartz, Ally Lewber, or Brock Davies, who were all present at the panel. 

“My life obviously was drastically different filming Season 11 than any other season and just dealing with, kind of like what the teaser says, picking up the pieces for myself,” Ariana told Rolling Stone. “But I think what also is maybe not so much different from other seasons is people are very opinionated, saying things like, ‘This is what I would do in this situation,’ and if I’m not doing what they think they would do in the situation, they become very critical if I feel differently.”

Ariana continued, “I’m expressing my emotions a lot more freely now and people are somewhat uncomfortable with that at times. But I’m going to keep doing it.”

Katie chimed in to defend her friend and business partner, “Sounds like misogyny.”

For Katie, filming this most recent season was “easier” in some ways. Her divorce from Schwartz wasn’t a focal point, for one, and she didn’t have to deal with a storyline of Schwartz and Rachel Leviss making out and flirting, despite Katie expressly asking them not to. But there was also a lot of pressure and stress brought on by the outside world’s fascination with their every move. It wasn’t just Ariana who the public was interested in learning about; there was anticipation surrounding how all of the cast members would navigate their relationships with Sandoval. Plus, viewers were paying attention to any news involving Katie and Ariana’s West Hollywood sandwich shop Something About Her, which has been heavily teased but hasn’t opened yet.

“It was a lot easier for me than the previous season for several reasons, but it was also a lot more challenging because it felt like we were in a fishbowl, for sure,” Katie said. “There were eyes, ears, and photographers constantly around. There weren’t a lot of places you could retreat to. People were so eager and wanting real-time information and content, it was like, can we just wait? Can everyone just take a breath?” 

The Vanderpump cast is, of course, used to being in the public eye. There’s the fame and notoriety that’s generally come from being on the reality series, which first premiered in January 2013, and individual cast members have found themselves in the spotlight outside of the show. Lala has been outspoken following her breakup from Hollywood producer Randall Emmett after she caught him cheating on her. The Los Angeles Times published an investigation into Emmett which included allegations of race discrimination and workplace abuse, which Lala has also been candid about with her followers. Still, making Season 11 raised a number of unique challenges.

“I try to tune the outside world out so that I can say what I mean and be able to back that up later on. If I live in the comments section, that’s going to go very badly, so I tune that out,” Lala told Rolling Stone. “But you can tell that we were on our A-game. There were people chasing us down, we had extra security, production had to remove people. You definitely felt that we were on another level after Scandoval happened.”

“Another level” is putting it mildly. Some of the cast have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from selling Scandoval-related merchandise, opened businesses, and launched podcasts. James has been on tour across the country DJing, Ariana has appeared on Dancing with the Stars as well as Love Island, and there’s even a Vanderpump spinoff in development. Over the summer, paparazzi photographed former Vanderpump stars Kristen Doute, Jax Taylor, and Brittany Cartwright filming with cameras along with Scheana and Lala. 

At the heart of this pop-culture whirlwind is the vitriol against Sandoval, who spent months cheating on Ariana with their friend and fellow cast member Rachel Leviss, formerly known as Raquel. When the news first broke, the cast was unflinchingly angry and unforgiving of Sandoval. They slammed him on social media, were aggressive and direct with him at the reunion, and had declared their friendships with him to be over. Fans and viewers also unapologetically hated Sandoval, writing mean comments online, leaving bad Yelp reviews for his and Schwartz’s bar Schwartz & Sandy’s, and publicly lambasting him at every turn. Fans in attendance at BravoCon booed Sandoval on stage, letting him know that his presence was not very welcome.

Shooting at certain times was insane. They were like the freakin’ Beatles or something.

“I want it to calm down. I think it’s been eight months,” Lala said about the criticism from fans. “What he did was absolutely mind-blowing, especially because it was the perfect storm: We could watch it in real time knowing what happened. If I’m saying it’s time to let it go, someone who was all-in when this first happened, then I think it’s time to let it go. I don’t want to see anybody wear this forever.” 

A panel of Vanderpump Rules producers addressed fans on Saturday, giving behind the scenes information about how the crew put together the Emmy-nominated Season 10 as well as some insight into the process of filming Season 11. Executive producer Jeremiah Smith mentioned how difficult it was to keep spoilers under wraps while filming last summer because the fandom was unlike anything they’d experienced before.

“This is the first year [of] filming that paparazzi were showing up to, like, everywhere we were, which was crazy,” Smith said. “But what I will say is a lot of the stuff you read online or you see people assuming on, like, Reddit or Twitter or, like, paparazzi stuff is not accurate. So people make a lot of assumptions but I think, you know, you have to watch the show to see what actually happens.”

Smith added, “Shooting at certain times was insane. They were like the freakin’ Beatles or something.”

Producers also said that in Season 11 “there’s going to be this amazing moment with Jax Taylor where he has the opportunity to talk, for lack of a better word, to Tom Sandoval.” 

Jax and Brittany surprised fans at BravoCon on Sunday at the last minute, offering photo opps to those who bought VIP packages. Kristen also surprised fans, standing next to Jax and Brittany on the red carpet as Lala worked the crowd nearby. When asked about the scene Vanderpump Rules producers teased featuring Jax and Sandoval in the upcoming season, Jax told Rolling Stone fans can expect more than one scene between the two of them.

“The scenes were pretty intense, but it felt really good to get back into it,” Jax said. “It was me dusting off the webs a little bit, but I fell right back into it. I’m in a really great place right now and my life is amazing, so walking in there my head was clear.”

For Brittany, it was a happy return to BravoCon. The couple filmed Watch with Brittany Cartwright & Jax Taylor on Peacock earlier this year, where viewers saw them watch and commentate on the last couple of episodes of Vanderpump Rules Season 10 as Scandoval unfolded on screen. They didn’t confirm or comment on the spinoff that allegedly filmed this summer, but Brittany said she was glad to meet with a long line of fans who were eager to see them reenter the Bravo universe.

“We’ve been on Bravo for so long so it’s just awesome to be back around everybody and meet everybody,” Brittany told Rolling Stone. “We feel very blessed to be back. We’ve been doing our podcast and everything but it’s nice to actually be out here in Vegas and get to meet all of the fans in person. It’s a different kind of feeling.”

Being back in Las Vegas is somewhat of a homecoming for Jax and Brittany, they said; it’s where they met while Jax was spending the weekend in Vegas celebrating Scheana’s birthday. Many other VPR cast members have also cemented storylines in Sin City — Las Vegas is the site of many indiscretions, like Sandoval kissing Ariana in the pool at the Golden Nugget when he was dating Kristen and where Jax infamously ripped his chunky white sweater off before fighting Frank at Stassi’s birthday (as well as the place he got a porn star pregnant).

While other cast members said filming Season 11 of Vanderpump presented more challenges because of a heightened awareness and interest in the series, Jax said it didn’t feel any different for him than past seasons. 

“[The interest] really has never left, even when we stopped filming,” he said. “There were more [paparazzi] parked in front of our house when Brittany was pregnant [than now]. It never really stopped for us, they were always around looking at whatever we were trying to get into.”

The cast has continued to navigate their friendships and relationships on and off camera in real time while the dust settles from Scandoval, even at BravoCon. The cast’s panel on Friday morning was filled with tension as they all shared the stage together, clearly in varying stages of acceptance with Sandoval. Based on their comments in his defense, Schwartz, Scheana, Brock, and Lala seemed more forgiving and open to Sandoval, whereas Ariana and Katie appeared to be steadfast in their resentment. The friend group experienced even more drama at another panel on Saturday when James accused Lala of hanging out in Sandoval’s hotel suite the night before. Lala clarified that she wasn’t the one in his suite and Ariana said it was Scheana who was actually hanging out with Sandoval in his suite. Rumors started to swirl around BravoCon and the internet: Why was Scheana hanging out with Sandoval? Are they friends again? How does Ariana feel about that?

As Lala explained during the cast panel on Friday when Lisa defended Sandoval from booing fans: Even though the cast finished filming a whole other season together where they had the opportunity to grow, evolve, and shift their mindsets, the audience isn’t quite there yet; they haven’t had that same closure, which is why people were gossipping and speculating about the incident. Ariana was asked about Scheana hanging out with Sandoval on the red carpet on Saturday by a number of outlets, to which she replied, “It’s weird.” Then, at a Watch What Happens Live taping on Saturday night, Andy Cohen told Scheana, “You kind of got flack for hanging out in Tom’s [Sandoval] hotel room last night.”

She explained that when the bar closed, a group of people wanted to continue partying because they “were having great conversations” with some cast members from Below Deck, and the party happened to continue in Sandoval’s room. An audience member also asked Scheana if she had spoken to Ariana after the panel earlier that day where she appeared frustrated that Scheana hung out with Sandoval.

“We talked right after. We didn’t talk about any of that, but everything is fine,” she said. “[Ariana] knows that… part of the conversation I had with Tom [Sandoval] while I did go back to his room was defending her and telling him I didn’t like some of the shit he was saying to the press.” 

There’s much to be seen about the current and future state of the group’s dynamics, where they all stand now, and how that might change when Vanderpump Rules Season 11 airs in January. What has never been more clear, as far as fans and viewers are concerned, is the fact that the chaotic Vanderpump Rules universe is the gift that keeps on giving.