Katie Maloney Dishes On Scheana Marie Shay "Victimizing Herself," Accusations Of Being A Bridezilla, & Her Drama With Ariana Madix And LaLa Kent

To say that this has been a rough year for Katie Maloney on Vanderpump Rules would be a major understatement. Not only is she at the center of most of the drama this season, but she is also really feeling the heat from the Pump Rules fandom on social media. Now Katie is defending herself against the haters and justifying her actions by giving the viewers some insight on her conflicts with Scheana Marie Shay, Ariana Madix, and LaLa Kent.

Hopefully Katie has some reasonable explanations for her behavior this season, but I guess that’s up for you to decide. I was all for Katie “finding her voice” and moving away from being portrayed as Stassi Schroeder’s sidekick, but now it’s hard to know how I feel- not that I actually know these people or have any role in this friend group. Needless to say, Katie’s latest interview is interesting.

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Katie appeared on the Pump Rules Podcast to open up about all that has gone down this season. One story line that has been a real throwback to Season 1 is the Stassi, Katie, and Kristen Doute clique vs. Scheana. And Katie finds it very offensive. Katie explained, “I’ve been a little caught off guard. I was aware that Scheana was saying certain things about me and wasn’t particularly happy with me- not even understanding why when it was happening, but watching now this season and seeing really all the stuff she was saying and not really seeing where that was coming from.” I feel like Scheana was just getting some sort of friendship PTSD from the old days in all honesty. Now that the big three are close again, Scheana feels less welcome.

Katie insists that this is all in Scheana’s head and that she was very much included. Katie explained, “There was a solid eight months where you know me Scheana, Stassi, Kristen, Rachael, and whoever else would all hang out like this big group of girlfriends. Sometimes it would be all of us, sometimes it would be a few of us in whatever combinations you could make from that group and it was great. There was never a problem. Then all of sudden Scheana is kind of sort of putting a wedge between us and we didn’t know why.” If that’s actually the case, then I feel like that’s a part of life, within every big friend group, there are some people who are bound to be closer and sometimes not everyone is available to hang at the same time. Sure FOMO can be tough sometimes, but was Scheana actually excluded? That’s the tough part to figure out. To paraphrase something Ariana Madix said in a previous interview on the same podcast, it seems like Stassi and Kristen might be overcompensating for the years when they were on the outs with Katie by supporting her no matter what she does… or texts.

Katie continued to emphasize that they did not exclude Scheana when she explained, “And she was like ‘It’s just the three of you’ and we were like ‘since when?’ What? Four years ago? We haven’t gone through everything to go back to that. We are not reliving that again. We are not repeating history.” Or are you? Aside from Scheana being super tacky when she revealed the bridesmaid expenses (which she apologized for), it really does seem like Scheana is just insecure with her spot in the group and didn’t really do anything bad.

Katie added, “We have pulled her aside and had so many conversations with her just to let her know how much we love her, how much we regret wasting time, and how happy we were to come together and be this great group of girlfriends. I feel like that was a choice that Scheana made. I don’t know if it was an insecurity thing. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what it is because nothing I’ve done or said- or any of the other girls- has warranted that kind of response from Scheana. So for her to just kind of victimize herself consistently and put it on me like I hate her.” I feel like this would be a logical time to bring up Katie’s Klique getting mad at Scheana for talking to LaLa at work about work-related topics, but LaLa is a whole other portion in this interview. Is Scheana really a victim of this clique or is she playing this up for a story line?

Switching topics, slightly, Katie doesn’t understand why everyone thinks she’s bridezilla who makes everything about her wedding- even though pretty much this entire season has been a series of events leading up to her wedding. Katie did not understand Scheana’s melt down during the spa day at Pandora Vanderpump’s house.

Katie lamented, “In the last episode at Pandora’s when she got so upset with me and ran to the bathroom crying and saying that she hates me, I’m just like at what point did I say that I hated you? And it’s like ‘all about me’? ‘Everything’s about me and I can say and do what I want there’s and there’s no consequences.’ And I’m like what was I saying or doing that I didn’t think that there were consequences for?” Rage texting, anyone?

Katie continued to ask, “That I was being honest with you? That’s the one thing that I’ll say, people can call me a tyrant and they can call me a bridezilla or whatever, but basically what I was trying to do this whole summer was be in a real place with people where there were no question marks about what I thought or felt about someone- that basically however I was feeling, what I was thinking I was just gonna let you know because I feel like I’m doing a disservice to someone, I’m being deceitful to my best friend by not telling them how they’re affecting me.”

Katie tried to explain her tendency to bring up her wedding: “Of course when I say ‘It’s my wedding season. Of course I don’t want this kind of stuff’ it’s the only part that they show so it looks like I’m making it all about that. But if I’m a bridezilla and a tyrant for wanting my friends to get along and the dynamic to be just solid between everyone- to make the wedding even more enjoyable, then call me a bridezilla because I don’t know who in their right mind wouldn’t want to strive for peace and calm within their group of friends- especially under the kind of stress I was in. It just was more comforting to know that people were actually trying to give each other a chance- but I’m a tyrant for that.” That actually does make sense in all honesty. I know everyone is hating on Katie this season, but if she just wanted everyone to get along, I can see why she might use her wedding as bargaining chip to persuade people to stop fighting- it just really came off like she was trying to bring the attention back on to herself in all honesty. But once again, I do understand that we don’t get to see everything that goes down and blah blah blah blah.

And eventually Katie eventually addressed her issues with LaLa, which she also used to address her issues with Ariana. Katie complained, “When it came to the LaLa stuff, the whole like sit-down and trying to make peace between us, I’m just wondering at what point Ariana thought that was productive or a good idea or in the least bit respectful to me.” Did she not watch the show? Katie’s own mentor Lisa Vanderpump is the one who asked Ariana to sit down Katie, Scheana, and LaLa to try and hash things out. If Katie claims that she wanted everyone to get along for the sake of her wedding (which is one day) and its events, then wouldn’t she be understanding of Lisa wanting her employees to peacefully coexist at her restaurant?

Katie hypothesized that Ariana and LaLa only got close when she rekindled her friendship with Kristen which is a claim that might hold some validity since Ariana and LaLa have had it out with Kristen in the past. But then again, they are all on this show together so of course they have to be in scenes together! How does nobody realize this? Katie claimed, “Her and LaLa sort of struck up a friendship out of thin air for all I know, so for her to kind of be orchestrating that really, really got to me because I had a very close friendship with Kristen for many years and I spent two years not being friends and that’s during a time when Ariana and I got close and then when Kristen and I sort of began to reconcile, that’s when Ariana and I sort of stopped being as close.” Again, I feel like it was more about making peace for the sake of being on the same show together, but who knows if they just formed friendship “I Hate Kristen” meetings, but Kristen is so harmless these days. She is the most fun person on the show and she isn’t f***ing anyone else’s boyfriend, so I don’t see why she would be blamed for anything.

Katie then tried to relate Ariana’s Lisa Vanderpump-instigated attempt to get Scheana and Katie to get along with LaLa AT THEIR PLACE OF WORK to the fact that she never tried to push Ariana and Kristen to “reconcile”- as if they were ever friends. Katie said, “I never once for the benefit of myself or the show or anything ever tried to orchestrate some sort of reconciliation between Kristen and Ariana because I knew that was never going to happen because I knew how Ariana felt and even as willing as Kristen was, I knew that I would disrespect my friend Ariana by trying to ignorant to the fact that this is something she would never be interested in. So I always just kept it separate and Kristen knew and respected that. She would never be upset about me being friends with Ariana. She understood all that.” Yeah, because Kristen has morphed into being the best female cast member on this show- at least in my opinion. But contrary to what goes down with many people in this clique, not everyone knows how to be friends with someone their boyfriend dated or had sex with. Not to mention all of that Miami girl drama- but I’m not trying to bring up the past with Kristen. She’s reformed now.

So why does Katie have an issue with LaLa? By now we all know that the problem lies in whatever LaLa was saying in between seasons about Katie- things that did not make the show. And that’s totally valid. Nobody wants someone to be talking shit, but as far as the show goes, not all of the viewers listen to/watch/read all of the cast interviews. It’s tough to get the complete picture here. And instead Katie and clique’s hatred of LaLa transformed her from a side character with zero relevance in the cast to a main topic of conversation- oh the irony. If they just didn’t mention her at all, she would have been kicked off of this show way before she quit.

Katie said, “I get like Google alerts about stuff so I’ll see like headlines for the story or whatever they’re saying or people will retweet me stuff. So hearing all this stuff, especially talking about my body, my image, my relationship, my fiance, his dick’s size, our imminent divorce was pretty disgusting.” I get why Katie and her friends would be against someone saying this, but LaLa didn’t do this on the show, so all the viewers are seeing is Katie’s hate. Unfortunately, Katie got doubly victimized by this whole thing: first from the initial shit talking (that wasn’t on the show) and then her reaction (which was shown on the show) was just not a good look for her. But Katie is the real winner here since ultimately LaLa was a blip in Pump Rules history. She probably won’t be on the show next year and Katie has had the opportunity to be a full-time cast member for the show’s entire run.

Apparently LaLa tried to quit the show back during that OK Magazine party that was shown during the first episode this season. Katie revealed, “I saw her take her mic pack off. She ran away a couple times. I remember one time her going up to one of our camera guys and grabbing the camera, not throwing it down, but throwing out of her face. That’s like a big, big no no. Our crew is amazing and a lot of them have been with us from the beginning or for the last few years. It’s really disrespectful.” If only she really did quit then, then we wouldn’t have to endure all of this pointless chatter about LaLa dating a married dude and Katie (probably) would have had a much better edit this season if she wasn’t hating on LaLa so much.

Katie also said, “Her and everyone else’s claims that I never liked her from the minute she stepped foot in SUR was complete and utter bullshit.” Yeah, I wouldn’t go that far, we all remember Katie and Scheana questioning LaLa about giving blow jobs in exchange for world travel- but everyone only calls out Katie for asking these questions.

Katie also touched upon another story line that has not been a good look for her: her rage texts toward Ariana and Tom Sandoval for causing tension in her relationship with Tom Schwartz. I was kind of confused by Schwartz asking Ariana to be a groomsman when Katie was not on good terms with her, but Katie did reveal, “You didn’t see it on the show, but my reaction was like ‘Oh that’s a really good idea’ I was actually on board with that because I wasn’t going to suggest that to Schwartz since it hadn’t occurred to me, but the fact that he came up with that on his own was something that I thought was very nice. They have a friendship, they’re close, it makes sense.” I don’t see why that couldn’t have been shown, but unfortunately Schwartz being nice to Ariana and Katie supporting it doesn’t make for good drama. They just really gave this woman zero breaks when it came to the editing.

Katie also emphasized that she supported Tom having Ariana as a groomsman instead of asking her to be a bridesmaid by saying, “It was never to leave her out. That’s why I invited her to my bridal shower. I invited her to the thing at Pandora’s. She’s my friend and I didn’t want to exclude her.” You can’t invite everyone to everything and unfortunately not all of your friends can be bridesmaids. It doesn’t mean that Katie hated when she didn’t ask her. Plus we all know that Schwartz was never going to get away with having Ariana in the wedding if Katie didn’t approve of it, so it’s kind of ridiculous that Katie gets villainized here. There are a lot of reasons to take issue with Katie this season, but this groomsman thing is not one of them.

However, I do not completely get her reasoning for blaming Sandoval and Ariana for her issues with Schwartz. That seems like quite the leap to me and a textbook example of projecting. Katie explained, “I don’t blame Tom and Ariana solely for Tom and my fights, but he is always very quick to defend the two of them. It used to be just Sandoval and Jax [Taylor] and now it’s extended to Ariana and that’s when it really started to wear on me because now I’m like ‘You’re putting another woman’s feelings above mine.’ As much as Ariana is my friend and I shouldn’t have those feelings of insecurity, it definitely did really get to me and eat away at me.” At the very least, it’s good that Katie is being honest about her insecurity.

Katie also said, “It’s really hard because Tom doesn’t like conflict with his friends. He never fights with his friends. He’s always saying ‘You’re always in a fight with someone’ and I’m like ‘No, I’m always discussing things with people.’ Sure there’s conflict, but there’s always a resolution that happens, but he is very averse to any kind of conflict or confrontation period. He can’t deal with it. Without even being a witness to what happened, he was already drawing conclusions and blaming me for everything. So that causes us to fight.”

Katie concluded, “So I’m like if I didn’t have these conflicts with some of our friends and he wasn’t so quick to defend all of them, I feel like we wouldn’t be getting in these fights.” I can see where her mind was going, if there weren’t conflicts for Schwartz to hear about, then there would be no opportunity for him to side with someone other than Katie, so she went to the source of her friendship conflict….. BUT the real issue here is between her and Schwartz and the fact that she doesn’t feel like he takes up for her often enough. Even if Sandoval and Ariana stopped upsetting her, someone else is going to eventually and if she and Schwartz don’t resolve the way the two of them deal with conflict then she’s going to continue feeling like she’s at the bottom of his list when it comes to picking sides.

At the very least, Katie did own up to her wrongdoing with the rage texts to Ariana and Sandoval. She admitted, “Unfortunately it sounded like ‘just get over your f***ing selves’ but that’s not what I meant. I was just like if you love Tom, even if you love him more than me, just please understand this is having an negative effect on us.”

Unfortunately this season of Vanderpump Rules has wrapped up filming and I assume that the remainder of the episodes are editing, so there is really nothing Katie can do to save face at this point. Let’s just hope that things turned around for her and that she goes back to being that Katie that we all rooted for during the show’s earlier seasons. If not, then there’s always next season.

Tonight is an all new episode of Vanderpump Rules and we’re still in the midst of New Orleans drama. “The epic New Orleans blowout continues late into the night, with Schwartz and Sandoval – still in full drag – fiercely refuting the cheating accusations. Meanwhile, Stassi realizes her past fights with Katie caused her to miss a painful moment when Katie needed her most. Later, Kristen confronts Sandoval about trying to ruin her new relationship, and Stassi pays her dad and grandmother a nostalgic visit on the day they’re moving out of her childhood home. Finally, Katie and Schwartz bury their issues on a wild last night in Nola, featuring a scandalous game of spin the bottle. Back in LA, Lisa talks to Ken about partnering up with Tom Sandoval to open a new bar.” Meet us here in the comments to pick apart the episode. And don’t forget that Stassi will be on WWHL tonight!

TELL US- DO YOU THINK THAT SCHEANA VICTIMIZES HER SELF OR ARE KATIE, KRISTEN, & STASSI REALLY MEAN TO HER? DO YOU THINK THAT KATIE’S ACTIONS TOWARD LALA ARE JUSTIFIED?

[Photo Credit: Bravo]

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