Bravo announced the spinoff, 'The Valley,' in mid-January.
Just days after Bravo announced The Valley, a spinoff of their massively successful show Vanderpump Rules, former cast member Stassi Schroeder is explaining why she will not appear on the new installment.
Sitting down with SiriusXM, the former Sur employee, 35, took the blame off of Bravo after fans voiced their anger that she was seemingly being left out of the conversation for the new series.
"First of all, I was very excited about it [the spinoff]," said host Jeff Lewis. "But then I was like, 'Where the f**k is Stassi?' and then I was mad at Bravo, you know, just like secretly mad at Bravo that they didn't have you and Beau on."
"It's not Bravo's fault," Schroeder said, as Lewis, 53, responded, "You turned it down."
Schroeder -- who got her start in reality television by appearing on The Amazing Race alongside her family members -- told Lewis and the other guests that Bravo did, in fact, come to her and ask her to film a sizzle reel for The Valley. A sizzle reel is a term used in television and film to describe a short trailer that showcases what a project would look like, often sent to networks or studios to gauge interest in greenlighting a project.
"Once this idea was brought up and they were like, 'OK, we're going to film a sizzle with all the people that would be on it, will you be on it and film this sizzle?,' every fiber of my being voted no," she said.
Asking why she decided not to do it, Lewis questioned whether it was her feelings about who she would be co-starring alongside. Confirmed cast for The Valley include former Vanderpump Rules members Jax Taylor, Brittany Cartwright and Kristen Doute.
"It's a lot of different reasons," Schroeder told Lewis. "First of all, it wouldn't be a reflection of what my reality is."
"How do you know?" Lewis. asked.
"Because I'm not friends with any -- you know, it's just not my group of friends. I'm friendly with some of them, I'm acquaintances with some of them -- and some of the new ones too that I think are lovely. But it's not my crew."
The reasoning is especially important considering that the spinoff is set to "follow a group of tight-knit friends, who are trading in their glamorous West Hollywood lives and swapping bottle service for baby bottles as they adapt to the next chapter of their fun-loving lifestyle in The Valley."
Schroeder was fired from Vanderpump Rules in June 2020 alongside Doute, who will star on The Valley. At the time, past racist actions against former their co-star, Faith Stowers, resurfaced online, causing an uproar among fans.
Despite her saying that when Bravo filmed the sizzle she was still friends with some of the cast members, and Lewis asserting that the new show might have a completely different vibe, Schroeder still said that at the end of the day, she believes she made the right decision.
"I don't want to. I don't want to have to go and do things that I normally wouldn't do," Schroeder said. "I don't want to disrupt the life that I have right now because I really like my life right now."
The Valley will premiere on Bravo in the spring.
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