The cast of Vanderpump Rules have always said their show is real, raw, and not scripted. However, the new season seems a little more staged than past years. The cast is currently divided, which makes creating a show about a tight-knit friend much harder. Ariana Madix and her crew don’t want to hangout with Tom Sandoval and his crew, making producers’ job near impossible. While we don’t believe producers are physically handing the cast members scripts, we think the Vanderpump Rules Season 11 scenes feel less authentic post-Scandoval.
Here are a few examples:
Lala Reaching Out to Rachel
In the premiere episode, Lala Kent was dealing with a guilty conscience and felt compelled to reach out to her former co-star Rachel Leviss. She stepped outside TomTom and sent Rachel a voice memo.
“Hey Raquel,” she began. “I’m sure I’m like the last person you expected to hear from. I hope that you’re doing okay.” She ended the message by saying she would like to have a conversation with Rachel if she was open to that. Lala explained her reasoning for reaching out, saying she felt connected to Rachel because she also received criticism for “being a mistress.”
“What Raquel did, what she said, how she went about things was so f***ing stupid,” she said in a confessional. “But as someone who knows what it’s like to walk through life and see comments about being a mistress, I don’t want her to wear that forever.”
While it’s totally possible that Lala wanted to extend an olive branch to Rachel, we can’t help but think producers had something to do with it.
After all, Rachel has been open about all the ways production was trying to get her back on the show. Rachel shared her thoughts on Lala’s message on Chapter 6 of her podcast “Rachel Goes Rogue.”
“I didn’t trust Lala and her intentions,” she shared. As I’m watching this season and this episode, immediately I was like, oh, she did it on camera. Okay. That makes a lot of sense.”
“It’s allowing for the dialogue to take place for me to come back into the group,” she continued. “At this point, Vanderpump Rules did want me back and they were trying to figure out ways that I could reintegrate with the group.”
We agree with Rachel. The whole thing felt like at tactic to get Rachel back on the show.
Scheana Running Into Sandoval At SUR
In Episode 3, Scheana Shay had an “unexpected” run-in with Tom Sandoval on her way to the bathroom at SUR. Sandoval yelled her name as she walked by his table and she looked shaken to see the defamed Bravo star, which we aren’t totally buying.
What are the chances that the only female cast member who would entertain a conversation with Sandoval is the one who walks right by his table? The scene with Scheana and Sandoval in the back alley felt pretty staged. While the dialogue between the two felt natural and off the cuff, how they got there felt set up.
The Lake Tahoe Trip
Lisa Vanderpump told Tom Schwartz he should invite the whole group to Lake Tahoe to celebrate the opening of her and Ken’s new restaurant, Wolf. She thought it would be a nice way to bring the group together. In other words, get Sandoval back in the fold. Schwartz pitched the idea to the girls and surprisingly, Lala and Scheana were down.
The Lake Tahoe trip seems so random and is clearly a last ditch effort to get the group together. The one thing the group can connect on is their love for Vanderpump, so the opening of Wolf serves as the perfect backdrop for the first cast trip post-Scandoval.
We don’t understand how Scheana and Lala went from hating Sandoval to agreeing to go on a trip with him. It doesn’t make much sense, which makes us think the getaway was highly orchestrated.
TELL US-DO YOU THINK VANDERPUMP RULES SEASON 11 FEELS SCRIPTED? WHAT OTHER SCENES DO YOU THINK WERE STAGED?
