Katie Maloney’s friendship with Lala Kent could be over for good! The Give Them Lala podcast host broke her “trust” at the Vanderpump Rules reunion!
During part one of the three-part reunion on Tuesday night, the two women got into a heated confrontation as they opened up about their rocky relationship throughout Season 11 of the Bravo series. Lala said a lot of their tension stemmed from a DM Katie sent her about her ongoing custody battle with Randall Emmett:
“You said, ‘Get rid of your lawyers because what you need is a f**king therapist. You’re a f**king clown.'”
Yeesh!!! Katie denied writing parts of the message — though owned up to calling her “a clown” and telling her to get a therapist:
“I didn’t say get rid of your lawyers. I didn’t say get rid of them. I think I did call you a clown, but I wasn’t talking about your custody battle. I think I did say I’d recommend a therapist, which I think everyone needs a therapist.”
Funny how she admitted to the “clown” thing, as that was the most insulting part to us!
Related: Lala Kent ‘In Early Talks To Join’ The Valley Next Season — But What About VPR??
But the bigger issue Lala had with Katie? She feels the 37-year-old sandwich shop owner acts differently off-camera than on. At one point in their argument, she claimed Katie vented to her about her frustrations with Ariana Madix in private regarding their restaurant Something About Her! For one, Lala claimed her co-star had confided how Ariana abandoned their business after her success! Ariana’s star has definitely risen amid the fallout of Tom Sandoval’s cheating scandal with Rachel Leviss — and there’s been plenty of speculation she was not longer interested in running a sandwich shop. So now there’s talk the Broadway star was behind on rent payments for their place?? Lala explained:
“It was beyond just the support she was getting. It was that she had basically abandoned you in the sandwich shop. This year last time you said she wasn’t caught up on her rent for the sandwich shop.”
Katie mostly wouldn’t cop to trash-talking about Ariana behind her back. Looking completely confused, she insisted both she and Ariana had paid their share of the rent at the time. However, Tom Schwartz’s ex-wife did admit she would’ve liked a heads-up about Ariana leaving Los Angeles to star in Chicago on Broadway since they were still trying to get their shop up and running:
“That was the one time I wish I would’ve gotten a little bit of a heads up, because I didn’t find out about the Broadway thing until it was happening. OK, that would’ve been nice to know. The issues I was having were because of my own insecurities.”
But Lala swore that wasn’t what she said during their conversation. She fired back:
“You and I are truth tellers. We say s**t how it is. So why, when the cameras go up, am I suddenly the enemy when I’m talking about the same s**t we’ve spoken about on the phone?”
You know, it’s rich for Lala to accuse Katie of acting differently towards Ariana on-camera when we’ve seen the mom of one act supportive toward the 38-year-old cocktail book author to her face then s**t-talk about her in confessionals and behind her back all season. Just saying! Besides, who hasn’t vented to another friend about an ongoing problem with a pal? It happens! But to blow it up on TV like that? What a betrayal! And it’s not like Katie didn’t eventually have a talk with Ariana about her concerns. More on that later…
Ultimately, Lala basically accused Katie of sucking up to the big star! She assumed the on-camera support of Ariana was only because of the positive public response the Love Island host received during Scandoval:
“I think there were a few people sitting up here that were living in the comments section all the livelong season. Katie’s one of them. … It’s no secret that Ariana is a fan favorite, right. You don’t f**k around with that and I understand that.”
However, Katie denied that. She explained she only reached out to Lala about the situation because she didn’t want to go to Ariana while she was still processing that huge betrayal:
“I came to you because I didn’t want to go to her with the f**king drama. I didn’t want to guilt her. I went to one of my other friends to vent about it, but if you’re not someone I can confide in with that s**t then I’ll go to somebody else. I didn’t want to take it to her.”
At this point, Lala went off. She claimed Katie “lost” her “mind on” her during their phone call. But the Disrespectfully podcast host claimed she only freaked out when Lala told her to throw Ariana “under the bus and talk about how mad” she was about the sandwich shop drama — something she was unwilling to do on camera. Lala clapped back:
“I wanted to film a show that we’ve been filming, you guys for 11 years, and suddenly the name of the game is different. I wanted to play the same game that we’ve been playing for years.”
Funny how she refers to it all as a game, right? Just keeping that one on file. Katie defended herself, saying she’s been “the same f**king person the entire time” they’ve been filming VPR for 11 years. Lala disagreed, though, saying:
“That’s not true. You lost your mind. You said, ‘I’m not going to say these things, because I’ve invested a lot of money in this sandwich shop.’ You said to me, ‘If you’re going to f**k with my business, Lala, I’m going to f**k with yours.’ And honest to God I wanted to say to you, ‘Something About Her is really Nothing About Her right now. You don’t got a business, and mine is my livelihood that I support my child on, so how dare you try to f**k with it.’”
Damn! What an intense convo between these two! Watch a clip from their fight (below):
On Part 1 of the #PumpRules Reunion, Lala's sharing who she feels has not been the same this season. pic.twitter.com/4uWfPf2pAu
— Bravo (@BravoTV) May 15, 2024
After the reunion aired, Katie took to her Instagram Stories on Tuesday to further address the private conversation she had with Lala. In her post, she shared how she felt overwhelmed and insecure with the challenges of opening their shop. However, she didn’t want to drag Ariana into it — despite being business partners — since her friend was dealing with the “hurt” of Scandoval while getting amazing opportunities like Dancing With the Stars and Broadway.
In turn, she confided in Lala, who she thought was a “safe” person to go to with her concerns. That ended up not being the case, clearly! Katie wrote:
“I’m someone who has suffered from imposters syndrome for as long as I have known myself. Hence why I was apprehensive about opening the sandwich shop on my own. So when Ariana was going through not only a world of hurt but also getting some amazing opportunities. That changed a lot of things during a pivotal time. I was extremely sensitive to what she was going through but also very supportive. I was dealing with immense insecurity about what I could take on and simply didn’t want to put that on her. I had an emotional response that didn’t feel appropriate bringing to her front door so I went to where I felt safe. Or where I thought I felt safe.”
Katie told fans she waited for an “appropriate” time to vent her feelings to Ariana — and they’ve since had “plenty” of heart-to-hearts about the matter. And then she got one last dig at Lala in a follow-up post, saying:
“To know me is to know I value trust, loyalty and integrity…”
And it sounds like Katie feels Lala lacks all of those qualities now! Ouch! Check out the post (below):
Oof. It’s no wonder VPR needed to take a break from filming instead of jumping right back into the show this summer! We’ve only seen one part of the reunion, and things are already SO heated! Reactions, Perezcious readers? Are you Team Lala or Team Katie in this situation? Sound OFF in the comments!
[Image via Vanderpump Rules/Peacock]
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