The ‘Vanderpump Rules’ star tells ET she and the actor-producer may wind up back together -- and married -- one day!
Scheana Shay isn’t shy about her love life these days.
“[We’re] friends with benefits, whatever you want to call it,” she admits, referencing her now-ex-boyfriend, actor-producer Rob Valletta.
The Vanderpump Rules star and Valletta started dating soon after she split from husband Michael Shay late last year, but called it quits in October… kind of.
“The love still exists!” she gushes to ET. “The relationship does not, but the friendship and the love is very much still there. He just spent Thanksgiving with my family, I’m doing Christmas Eve with his. We talk almost every day, we’re still very involved in each other’s lives. It’s just, where both of our career paths, and living situations are going right now, it’s not working out and it’s just a lot of pressure that is now released.”
Scheana is set to move to Las Vegas at the beginning of next year to headline the play Sex Tips for Straight Women From a Gay Man, and long distance just wasn’t going to work for her and Rob.
“Just because we’re not ‘together,’ we still love each other so much and are very supportive of one another,” she shares, noting that Rob actually helped her film the audition tape that landed her the starring role in the Vegas show.
This will be the second relationship Scheana is no longer in that she’ll will have to watch back on Vanderpump Rules, which returns for season six on Monday night. Still, she says this one will be a lot easier to watch than the one with her ex-husband.
“I don’t think weird,” she says. “I think some will be hard, because this year has been the happiest I’ve ever been in my life, and the breakup [with Rob] was hard, but the friendship that we’ve been able to keep and the love that’s still there, is great. So, as much as I thought it was gonna be really difficult to watch it back, I’m like, him and I are good.”
“It’s fun to see a new side of me, a new relationship,” she adds. “Rob is someone who brings out the best in me, and I’m always happy when I’m around him. So, whatever role he’s going to play in my life, I’m just happy he’s a part of it.”
Scheana calls her relationship with Rob “easy,” noting she’s known him longer than any of her Vanderpump Rules co-stars -- and she hints that a reconciliation is very possible in the future.
“Whether we’re friends, or boyfriend and girlfriend, or husband and wife one day, our dynamic is just easy,” she spills. “We’re very similar, we get along great. It was easy to hop in so quickly, because it was him. No one else in the world would I have dated so shortly after getting a divorce.”
As for her ex-husband, Scheana confesses they have not spoken in nearly a year. The last time they saw each other was at the season five reunion taping back in February.
“I think it is still a little too soon to have a friendship,” she says. “He’s in a new relationship [and] I’m very happy for him, he seems to be doing well, but I think it’s best we stay our separate ways for now, at least.”
Scheana says for the first time in a long time, she’s focusing on herself and learning how to be single. She hasn’t been on her own since 2010.
“When I’m in a relationship, it’s all about the other person,” she notes. “I put them first, their needs, whatever I can do to make their life easier, and I haven’t really done anything for myself in a while, so that’s something I’m trying to get used to, because I don’t ever put myself first.”
Tune into Vanderpump Rules every Monday at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo. For more on the new season, check out the video below.
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