Heavy/NBCUniversal Mauricio Umansky and Kyle Richards.
Kyle Richards is unsure if she will return to “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” for season 14, but that doesn’t mean fans have seen the end of her separation storyline.
The Bravo star and her husband Mauricio Umansky confirmed their separation in July 2023 as cameras for both of their reality shows rolled. Umansky and three of their daughters —Farrah, 35, Alexia, 27, and Sophia, 24 — star in “Buying Beverly Hills” on Netflix. The show follows the staff at Umansky’s real estate brokerage firm, The Agency.
While answering fan questions during an Amazon Live on March 5, 2024, Richards admitted she is on the fence about returning to RHOBH next season. She has been a cast member on the Bravo reality show since its inception in 2010.
When a fan asked her when she will decide if she will return to the Housewives, Richards replied: “I guess until I have no choice and have to make that decision. And it’s probably going to be a last minute one. I’m going to take every minute I need to think about that.”
Elsewhere on the live stream, Richards said she probably would not do another reality show once she leaves RHOBH and will instead focus on acting and producing.
Kyle Richards’ Marriage Storyline Will Continue on ‘Buying Beverly Hills’ Season 2
Richards and Umansky’s marital woes began to play out on the 13th season of RHOBH. But it wasn’t until the finale episode that fans saw how bad things were in the 27-year marriage.
Filming for the storyline continued on Umansky’s Netflix reality show, which premieres March 22. In the “Buying Beverly Hills” season 2 trailer, Umansky and Richards are seen talking about their marital problems. But a new sneak peek clip shows just how stressed Umansky is at work as he confides in his wife.
“I’ve been so stressed and the travel obviously affects, you know, us,” Umansky tells Richards in the scene. “And you’re working hard, and we’re just busy as can be and it’s just been so stressful. I had a whole breakdown the other day in the office,” he adds. Richards notes he had a similar breakdown at home.
In a confessional, Umansky admits, “I’ve been spreading myself way too thin. I’ve been trying to be like a macho man and not express everything that I’m dealing with my kids and my wife. And it’s starting to become one of these things where it’s just starting to get too big and too much for me to handle.”
Fans reacted to the “Buying Beverly Hills” scene on social media. Many noted that it’s giving a bigger picture about the marriage than was seen on RHOBH.
“I got more out of this clip than the entire season of RHOBH,” one viewer wrote on Instagram.
“So it looks like he did express how overwhelmed he is which is the opposite of what Kyle gave us. He said in 60 seconds more than Kyle did the entire season of housewives,” another agreed.
“The more I see clips the more it feels like they wanted this to have exclusivity versus showing it on bh,” another chimed in.
Kyle Richards Explained Why Her Marriage Storyline Continued on Netflix
PeacockKyle Richards and Mauricio Umansky.
Some fans are confused by the filming timeline. RHOBH was technically done filming when Richards and Umansky’s separation news was leaked to People magazine. Bravo’s cameras picked back up to document the aftermath of the magazine article leak.
In a March 2024 Amazon Live stream, Richards broke down the timeline for fans. “For anyone who’s confused, [the decision to separate] happened after we were done filming [RHOBH],” she shared. “The story came out, and then the Netflix cameras happened to be in Aspen.”
“ ended up filming with us talking about it,” she explained. “Obviously, Bravo has been following my life for 13 years. It’s not like can film that scene [for Buying Beverly Hills] and then I don’t share it with the viewers of The Housewives. We ended up shooting both of those scenes for ‘Buying Beverly Hills’ and ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ after we were all wrapped.”
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