The restaurateur weighs in on all the happenings in her extended TV universe as she opens Wolf, her latest eatery with Caesars.
Lisa Vanderpump has some things to say to Jax Taylor. Or rather, about him.
ET sat down with the reality TV vet inside her latest restaurant venture, Wolf by Vanderpump at Harveys Lake Tahoe, for a little state of the union on her various shows, starting with Vanderpump Rules. At a recent viewing party for the series and its newly launched spinoff, The Valley -- both of which Lisa executive produces -- at Jax's eponymously named bar in Studio City, California, Jax provided real-time commentary on an episode of VPR into a microphone, repeatedly blasting his former TV home.
"They don't even hang out with each other," he told the crowd, in a clip captured by TikTok user Kate Riccio. "Show me a scripted show and I'll show you f**king Vanderpump Rules. Scripted! Scripted!"
"I've been on this show for nine f**king years, this is scripted," Jax continued, referencing his tenure on the series -- which he once called "my show" -- before the network let him go in 2020 ahead of season 9.
"l'll be on next week, and I'll tell you what: it was scripted!" he spouted. Jax turned up on Tuesday's episode for an awkward chat with Lisa, during which she shamed him for calling her "superfluous" on Vanderpump Rules now that it no longer revolves around her businesses. Jax denied even knowing the word "superfluous."
"This is disastrous," he continued ranting. "Don't get me wrong, when we started, it was awesome. About seasons 1 through 6, it was organic, it was real. Now everybody starts to have money, now it becomes fake. Everything after six seasons is a wash, it's a f**king wash."
"Now you have a real show!" he announced when The Valley came on the bar's televisions. "Back to where we started. It's organic, it's real."
"I think it's absolutely ridiculous to say 'scripted,'" Lisa claps back. "Nobody can write a script like Vanderpump Rules."
"Oh my goodness," she adds. "Maybe what Jax says is scripted. Maybe he sits at home, in his little bedroom and writes his own scripts. Well, what do I know? Anyway, for the most part, anything Jax says doesn't make any sense to me."
After the clip went viral, Jax walked back the comments on his podcast with estranged wife Brittany Cartwright, When Reality Hits.
"I have a big mouth, and it gets me in trouble from time to time,” he told listeners. "I regretfully went on a rant about how Vanderpump Rules is scripted. I’m incredibly embarrassed by that.”
Jax went on to praise the show for being "the most authentic" reality series out there, especially as season 11 chronicles the aftershocks of Scandoval, the cheating scandal that turned the show into Bravo's No. 1 piece of programming. Last month, Lisa taped the all-cast reunion; soon after, reports circulated that something major went down between Lala Kent and Ariana Madix, a potentially friendship-ending feud.
"They can always come back from it," Lisa clarifies. "This group has been so divided so many times, and you would think that this one would never talk to that one again and, somehow, they manage to find their way back to each other."
While Lisa shuts down speculation that the VPR cast seems more divided than ever after reunion ("It's always something different with those lot, isn't it?"), the series does seem to be at a pivot point going into a potential 12th year. It doesn't seem plausible for breakout star Ariana to exist in the same television universe as her cheating ex-boyfriend, Tom Sandoval, beyond season 11; and, with The Valley in play, legacy cast members could easily "graduate" to that series, while Vanderpump Rules refocuses on the show's original premise, repopulated with fresh-faced servers (or rather, SUR-vers) who actually work at Lisa's Los Angeles eateries.
"I just think people are so attached to this cast, and there’s always a story to tell," she offers. "So we'll see. We'll know when the time is right [to shake things up]."
She doesn't brush off the idea of re-centering the show around her restaurants, but laughs off potentially following the staff of Something About Her, Ariana and co-star Katie Maloney's still-unopened sandwich shop.
"I hope it opens very soon, 'cause they're still paying rent!" she quips.
Along with more Vanderpump Rules, there's likely to be more Vanderpump Villa. While Hulu hasn't officially announced a season 2, Lisa says the streaming series is "very popular." She just filmed that cast's reunion, too.
"I survived," she jokes. "It's obviously not me, the ones that's in trouble, because I'm kind of at the helm there, but it's still a lot to manage with these young people."
Lisa notes that her Villa stars are all new to TV, so there's a "complicated" learning curve there; but she also defends them from critics who claim the series was cast exclusively with all wannabe reality stars. They all actually worked at the chateau featured on the series in roles ranging from chef to server, mixologist to housekeeper.
"Every single person in that show was somebody that knew their job very well," she declares.
As for whether some or all will be invited back for more, Lisa plays coy.
"I can't tell you things like that," she says, before offering, "There's always somebody I don't want to see again. You know that."
Where Villa round two shoots is also TBD; season 1 filmed in the South of France.
"I think if we did it again, and of course there's talk, but I can't say anything," she shares. "I think the exciting thing, we should go somewhere different. So watch this space."
Lisa's home country of England is an option; it's also where she spent the past couple of months filming her next show, Gordon Ramsay's Food Stars. Season 2 of the Fox competition sees LVP go up against the notoriously salty chef in a team vs. team battle to find the next, big culinary personality.
"I love Gordon, right, but Gordon -- I think -- needs a worthy opponent, and I think that maybe I'm it," she teases. "Let me just say, he's not gonna make an idiot sandwich out of me!"
Gordon and Lisa are also neighbors in Lake Tahoe, at least as business people. His Hell's Kitchen restaurant sits just steps away from the newly opened Wolf inside Harveys, a Caesars Entertainment property. They'll soon launch neighboring restaurants in Vegas at the Flamingo. Hers is called Pinky's, a nod to one of her nicknames.
"The next one, we've already designed and it's in motion," she notes. "We're gonna open around September, and Gordon's opening up a couple of months before. It's gonna be a beautiful, art deco vibe. Pinky’s, it's totally different [from Wolf]."
Lisa calls Wolf, which has a masculine edge compared to her other partnerships with Caesars, a "dream come true."
"We wanted to create something, [my design partner, Nick Alain] and I, really thought about it, something that felt organic to the area," she explains. "All the colors, the textures feel like it came from Lake Tahoe. ... We just wanted to feel very organic, very natural."
Food Stars premieres May 22 on Fox, while Vanderpump Villa streams Mondays on Hulu and Vanderpump Rules airs Tuesdays on Bravo, streaming on Peacock the next day.
RELATED CONTENT:
