Heavy/Getty "Vanderpump Rules" cast members.
Kristen Doute had some harsh words for Jo Wenberg, her former best friend who will appear on the upcoming 11th season of “Vanderpump Rules” as a “friend of” Tom Schwartz.
During a December 2023 episode of her “Sex, Love and What Else Matters” podcast, Doute questioned if Wenberg used her to get to Schwartz – and to get on the Bravo reality show.
Following his split from his wife Katie Maloney in March 2022, Schwartz became close with Wenberg. In a season 10 episode, he even revealed that the hairstylist was staying at his apartment temporarily. But on her podcast, Doute said her close friendship with Wenberg ended as soon as she got friendly with Schwartz.
Kristen Doute Explained Why Her Friendship With Jo Wenberg Ended
Bravo/YouTubeJo Wenberg in a scene from “Vanderpump Rules.”
Speaking on her podcast, Doute, 40, shared details on how close she once was with Wenberg until her former friend inexplicably “ghosted” her. “For you listeners out there that don’t know, Jo was one of my best friends,” Doute said. “When I say best friend, I don’t mean that lightly. This girl was my everyday ride-or-die. We literally hung out all the time. Like, six days a week. We stopped talking right around the time she started talking to Tom [Schwartz].”
“There was a text here and there, but she seriously just ghosted me,” Doute added. “And then I started finding out that she was hanging out with Schwartz and she was staying with him. Our friendship has been over ever since. Not because I broke off our friendship but because she broke off the friendship with me and started lying to me. Now all of a sudden she’s on the TV show that canned me.”
“Was I being used this whole entire time? Was this like a master plan to be on the show?” Doute added.
Wenberg never appeared on “Vanderpump Rules” when she was besties with Doute, but she was mentioned in season 10.
“Jo was literally Kristen Doute’s crazy friend. If you’re Kristen Doute’s crazy friend, that says a lot about you,” Katie Maloney said in a confessional, per Us Weekly. ‘The last text Jo sent me after Tom and I announced our divorce was her saying she will always love and respect me. And the fact that she moved in with Schwartz two seconds later, she’s that kind of b****,”
Wenberg does appear in the VPR season 11 trailer after James Kennedy asks Schwartz, “She’s your secret girlfriend, right?” Schwartz replies “no,” and Wenberg is later seen asking him, “Are you embarrassed by me?”
Tom Schwartz Admitted He Had a ‘Situationship’ With Jo Wenberg
Schwartz sometimes poses with Wenberg in social media photos, and she helped spearhead his decision to go blond for a short time earlier in 2023. The Schwartz & Sandy’s co-owner also mentioned Wenberg in the “Vanderpump Rules season 10 episode “Troll Mates.” In the episode, a hungover Schwartz revealed that he slept in because he was up until 4 a.m. “hanging out” with a female friend. “My friend Jo is staying with me,” he told Scheana Shay.
“Have you hooked up with Jo?” Shay asked, to which Schwartz replied, “No, not even a little bit. Not even a micro-moment. Jo’s my girl.”
According to BravoTV.com. Schwartz further addressed his relationship with Wenberg during the season 10 reunion. “No, she wasn’t [my girlfriend]. Especially not at that point,” he said. “It did evolve into a situationship or a friends-with-benefits thing with clearly defined boundaries. We were both coming out of long-term relationships, and for a minute there, we were each other’s happy places.”
In November 2023, Wenberg confirmed On her Instagram story that she will appear in the upcoming season of “Vanderpump Rules,” which premieres on January 30, 2024. “I did film this season of ‘Vanderpump Rules’, and it was a very big, eye-opening experience,” she told her social media followers in a video upload. “Being in front of the camera was very hard for me,” she added.
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