Heavy/Getty Kyle Richards.
Kyle Richards has been a cast member on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” ever since 2010, and she’s the only OG remaining. And that could be one of the reasons she often gets the brunt of the backlash on the Bravo reality show.
On the March 27, 2023, episode of the “Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef” podcast, Richards’ former co-star Brandi Glanville revealed that Richards drives the show — but that it comes at a price.
“Kyle’s kind of the middle, making sure that there’s a story and she’s getting a lot of f***ing hate for it,” she said. “But she’s doing her job. And Kyle and I are good. Like we text all the time and she hates the hate. ”
Glanville added that if Richards wasn’t encouraging conversations within the group, there wouldn’t be a show. “So I feel like she’s driving the ship in a way,” she said.
Brandi Glanville Said Kyle Richards Struggles With the Backlash She Receives
GettyBrandi Glanville
Richards is often smack in the middle of the drama, starting with the first season when she outed her sister, Kim, as an alcoholic during an on-camera argument. In the most recent season, she was caught laughing about Erika Jayne cursing at Garcelle Beauvais’ teen son, and she caught major backlash for questioning Sutton Stracke’s medical history.
In the podcast interview, Glanville said the show needs Richards to stir things up. “We need her to do that to make the show,” she said. “I mean, she’s the OG. I feel like she holds it on the show and when something’s not happening, she feels responsible because she wants to give a good show. So she’ll say, you know, she’ll get in trouble to make sure these conversations between people are happening.”
“She’s gotten so much hate,” Glanville, added. “She can’t handle it very well but I know what she’s doing because I watch it with a different perspective. She’s getting the conversation started and then she’s letting them do what they have to do.”
Glanville said that when she watches the show, she will sometimes text Richards. “And she’s like, …’ I can’t look at social media.’ It really breaks my heart. [She’s] getting more hate than I’ve ever got. And I am like, yeah girl, but guess what? You made the show for all of us to watch.”
Glanville added that Richards is also “very anxious” and noted that the past season of RHOBH was one of the only times she was really targeted with hate from viewers.
Kyle Richards Admitted She Sometimes Takes One for the Team
GettyRHOBH cast members.
Richards also had drama with her sister, Kathy Hilton, on the 12th season of RHOBH. In October 2022, Richards was a guest on Teddi Mellencamp’s “Two Ts in a Pod” podcast where she explained that viewers don’t know her whole family backstory and that revealing the secrets would make things “more complicated.”
“You cannot understand family dynamics,” Richards said. “You can think you do because you’ve watched the show, you have no idea what goes on behind closed doors. “You have no idea the history.”
“So if I have to have people hate me for thinking a certain thing, I’ll take it. I’d rather have people that don’t know me think I’m an a**hole than deal with more problems with my own blood by speaking up,” she said.
Richards has admitted that sometimes the backlash against her gets so bad that she has to take a break from the show. After she received hate for questioning Stracke’s claim that she suffered miscarriages, Richards admitted she stopped watching RHOBH for more than a month.
When Richards was a guest on the September 7, 2022 episode of “Watch What Happens Live,” host Andy Cohen pointed out that her involvement in Stracke’s personal miscarriage conversation with co-star Diana Jenkins “didn’t land” with viewers.
“I wish I could change a lot of things about that night,” Richards admitted. ”It was so bad. And looking at it gave me so much anxiety I actually couldn’t watch the show for about five episodes after that because my anxiety was so bad.”
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