Getty Kyle Richards, Lisa Vanderpump
Real Housewives of Beverly Hills stars Lisa Vanderpump and Kyle Richards have been close friends since reality series first premiered back in 2010. Like any real friendship, these women had their ups and downs over the years, but viewers never questioned their ability to inevitably kiss and make up.
However, after Richards, 50, got stuck in the middle of “Puppy-gate,” and they had a screaming match in Vanderpump’s home, for which even Lisa’s husband, Ken Todd, got involved, it proved to be a pivotal moment for the two reality stars, one for which still has fans wondering if the two reality stars could ever shake it off and move on.
As the season wrapped, it became clear that “Puppy-gate” caused irreparable damage between not just Vanderpump, 58, and Richards, but with her and the entire cast. The restauranteur stopped filming with the other women, skipped the reunion taping, and then announced that she will no longer be a part of the Housewives franchise.
Richards and Vanderpump Stopped Talking For Months
After the fight between Vanderpump and Richards back in February, the two stopped speaking to each other, and when the show actually started airing, things got even worse. In March, Richards posted on her Instagram story a photo of an article claiming Vanderpump would be fired from RHOBH, and added an emoji character smoking a pipe saying, “Interesante.”
In May, Richards told E!’s Just the Slip, she has reached out three times and was completely iced out. “I sent her a text saying, ‘I’m sorry that all this happened and I hope you have a beautiful birthday…'” another to see if she was attending Camille Grammer’s bridal shower, and a congratulations message on the opening of Vanderpump’s Vegas location.
“Both of them were delivered, because it said delivered,” Richards said. “Now, I have been blocked and it doesn’t say delivered, because I reached out to her again recently to congratulate her on the opening of Vanderpump Lounge in Las Vegas. That one didn’t say delivered so now I know that I have since been blocked. Before she was just saying I was blocked but I actually wasn’t.”
For Vanderpump, who will continue to star and executive produce her numerous spin-off Bravos series wrote in her blog of their big blow-out fight, “That is where the show started but is ultimately where our friendship finished.”
They Finally Bumped Into Each Other in June
After eight months, there’s a slither of hope that these two former friends will be able to one day be able to make peace. Both Richards and Vanderpump happened to be shopping at Neiman Marcus in June and they happened to ran into one another. Richards told Hollywood Life of the random encounter, “It was awkward at first, but then it was just two friends talking through stuff, like I wish the way it would have been when I had gone to her house [during Puppy-gate]. We still kind of just went in circles, but you could see when I left… we laughed a little. So I have hope.”
While before it seemed lethal to even have these two women in the same room together, it appears such vitriol has eased, at least on Richards’ end. “I think running into her, I know now that if that were to happen again, we’d be fine,” Kyle said. “I think with time, that will happen. I know for me, I would have no problem at all whatsoever.”
However, when Vanderpump was asked about a month before their chance run-in if she would accept ever Richards’ apology and move on she merely said, “I think she had that chance,” so this new development seems like progress.
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