A slew of firings rocked the cast of Vanderpump Rules, a reality series about L.A. restaurant co-workers, in June of 2020. Brett Caprioni and Max Boyens were let go after the discovery of racial slurs on their social media accounts, while Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute were let go for a racially insensitive incident involving former co-star Faith Stowers. Stowers went public about how the two other women had reported her to the police years prior for a crime she didn’t commit, as part of a supposed prank, and emphasized the danger this posed to her as a Black woman in the U.S. Two years later, Schroeder is opening up more about the situation, to include claims that other VR co-stars were involved with what took place.
On The Skinny Confidential Him & Her podcast, hosts Michael Bosstick and Lauryn Evarts lamented to Stassi Schroeder that her firing by Bravo was somewhat hasty. She concurred, saying it was “clearly not thought out” and that it was a quick enough decision where even the Vanderpump Rules producers she typically worked with didn’t know before it was announced. However, the reality star added that she understands overall why it had to happen:
I have no animosity towards whomever Bravo or NBCUniversal is because I do understand having to protect what you’ve built. And so, if I’m going to in any way hurt something that somebody’s built, then get me out of there. So I respect that side of it also.
The star has since seemingly moved on from her ouster and the world of reality television at large. At present, she’s raising a now-1-year-old daughter with husband Beau Clark. She also just released a second book, Off with My Head: The Definitive Basic B*tch Handbook to Surviving Rock Bottom, ahead of her second, much bigger wedding in Italy two weeks ago. (The wedding was originally supposed to be filmed for VR as a segue to a spinoff.) Apparently, her situation has improved so much that she doesn’t consider the Vanderpump Rules firing (along with subsequently being let go by her former PR and talent agencies, sponsorships, a book tour and a TV deal with Sony) such a bad thing anymore. She said:
I look back at it now, and I’m like, this was actually a gift. … When you’re on a reality show for so long, you’re on a path that you have no control over. And by being fired and released from that, as hard as it was and even though I miss it sometimes, now I can do whatever I want to do. There’s no one guiding me. There’s no one telling me that I have to be friends with certain people, go to these certain places, talk about these certain things, like I can do whatever the fuck I want. And there’s just so much satisfaction and joy in that.
Speaking on the idea of her being “cancelled” and living in “cancel culture,” Stassi Schroeder reflected that it’s actually “medieval” in her view. She explained that she thinks we’re living in a “weird, dark place” within society, where spectators want to see someone like her “lose everything.” Yet, the 33-year-old wanted to make it clear that she’s not a victim in this situation because she did indeed do what Faith Stowers claimed.
Still, she shared that it wasn’t “the best of times” immediately after the hammer came down from Bravo. Some of those behind the scenes on the Vanderpump Rules production team evidently “stepped up as friends,” though, which Stassi Schroeder admitted to being shocked by. But she also remembers feeling very angry for a month or so after everything transpired and that it delayed her learning from the process. Schroeder said:
I finally had to on my own get to the point where I was like, ‘I actually really want to be better. This is actually important to me. I want to educate myself on this. I want to learn why this was wrong and how I could be better at certain things.’ The cancelling made it harder for me to get there because I was so resentful at first.
Ultimately, the Bravo alum decided to go to a diversity coach to “do the work” of changing her behavior, which was also described in her book. She said she initially thought she would be judged for asking the wrong questions or saying the wrong things in these sessions but that her coach made her feel safe to do so. Schroeder added that, all in all, she’s “proud” that she can tell her daughter about how she went about things in the aftermath of the controversy.
And while she may be gone from Vanderpump Rules altogether, she still has some tea on her old co-stars to share with the group. In fact, she frankly alleged that there were more witnesses and “more people involved” in what she was fired for than is currently public knowledge. She didn’t name any names but did say:
Kris [Doute] and I, obviously, we were not going to take people down with us, so we were like, ‘Lucky you guys, those of you that didn’t get called out for this.’ So everyone was pretty kind because I think they were feeling lucky that they still had a job.
Season 10 of Vanderpump Rules was greenlit by Bravo just recently, so it makes you wonder which of the show's remaining stars were allegedly involved in these other occurrences. (Although, I don’t think we’ll ever find out at this rate.) Rumors abound that Stassi Schroeder herself might return to the fold, but she seemed iffy on the podcast about doing another season in the future, saying she would probably need to be an executive producer in order to be more in control of her own narrative.
That isn’t too likely, though, when it comes to the Bravo network. Just saying. Fans can revisit previous seasons of Vanderpump Rules, with or without Stassi Schroeder, using a Peacock Premium subscription.
