Heavy/Getty Brittany Cartwright.
Brittany Cartwright revealed she didn’t get paid to be on “Vanderpump Rules” at first.
The former Hooters waitress, who hails from Kentucky, met future husband Jax Taylor at a club in Las Vegas in 2015 ahead of filming for the 4th season of the Bravo reality show. But when she showed up in L.A. and made cameos during filming, she didn’t receive a paycheck because she was only considered a “guest” on the show.
“I didn’t get paid my first season of ‘Vanderpump Rules’ — until the very, very end. I was broke,” Cartwright said during an August 2023 episode of the “When Reality Hits With Jax & Brittany” podcast. “It took a lot out of me.”
Brittany Cartwright Spent a Fortune Traveling From Kentucky to L.A. to Be With Jax Taylor While He Was Filming ‘Vanderpump Rules’
GettyJax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright.
Cartwright previously dished about how she ended up in Los Angeles.
“We met in Vegas. He fell in love with me at first sight,” Cartwright told BravoTV.com of her early romance with Taylor. “He was with another girl. I stole him away. We’ve been together ever since. He begged me to move to L.A. and I did.”
But before she moved in, Cartwright had a long-distance relationship with Taylor that cost her a fortune in airfare.
“It was costing her,” Taylor said on “When Reality Hits” in 2023. “This was the beginning of the show and it was costing her $800 to $900 [to fly into L.A.]. She was in Kentucky she was bartending at Tin Roof and bartending at Hooters, and $800 is a lot of money when you wait tables, you’re bartending.”
“Because I had to work, I was going back and forth to see you,” Cartwright said to Taylor. “I was at work for a week and then would see you the next week. It was like two months.”
During this time period, Cartwright sometimes appeared on “Vanderpump Rules” but wasn’t a credited cast member. And she’s not the only “plus one” who didn’t get paid.
In January 2022, Brock Davies told “The Kyle and Jackie O Show” that because he was just considered Scheana Shay’s “plus one” during season 9, he didn’t get a paycheck from the show. “Zero, baby,” he said of his pay for appearances in 17 episodes of “Vanderpump Rules” that season.
“Scheana has a contract with these guys, it’s her whole life,” Davies said at the time. “I went into the season just putting my best foot forward for Scheana and supporting her because yeah, she gets a decent crack at the money from it.”
Lisa Vanderpump Hired Brittany Cartwright to Work at SUR Ahead of the 5th Season of ‘Vanderpump Rules’
Brittany Cartwright almost didn’t make the cut for “Vanderpump Rules.” When she first applied to work at SUR, Lisa Vanderpump’s West Hollywood restaurant that serves as the focal point of “Vanderpump Rules,” not only did she forget to bring her resume, but she was dressed in a skimpy romper that Vanderpump said was inappopriate.
Vanderpump eventually came around and hired Cartwright for her waitstaff.
“Well, she became part of the show and obviously it’s great for the restaurant to have people that legitimately need to work, and she really wanted to work,” Vanderpump told Entertainment Weekly in 2016. “We were a couple of waitresses down, and I thought, ‘Why not give her a shot?’ She’s actually fantastic. She really is there four or five nights a week. She’s lovely – I have never met a girl like her.”
Cartwright became a popular addition to “Vanderpump Rules” and went from no paycheck to scoring her own spinoff, “Jax and Brittany Take Kentucky.” And while Cartwright and Taylor exited “Vanderpump Rules” in 2020, in 2023 Deadline reported that the two will soon be part of another spinoff series set in the Valley.
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