Stassi Schroeder is telling her side of the story, three months after being fired from Vanderpump Rules.
As you no doubt recall, Stassi was dropped for a variety of offenses including “racially insensitive comments,” as well as a 2018 incident in which she called the cops on Faith Stowers, falsely accusing the Black former cast member of robbery.
Now, the 32-year-old Schroeder, newly pregnant and supposedly ready for soul-searching, is letting it all out in her first interview since the firing, getting real with host Tamron Hall.
Related: VPR Star Lala Kent Is Expecting Her First Child With Randall Emmett!
The two cover a LOT of ground throughout the interview, with Schroeder apologetic and clearly regretful for much of it as she tries to explain why things happened as they did. Here are some of the important highlights from Hall’s questioning of Schroeder, and what the now-former reality TV star has to say about herself. We’ve also included a few of the actual video clips from Hall’s interview (below)…
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On calling the police On Faith Stowers
This was the big one. How does Stassi answer for it?? She… defends herself and explains why it made sense for her to do. Seriously.
“It wasn’t just a photo [of the suspect, who generically resembled Faith]. Kristen [Doute] and I had received texts from multiple people about this [robbery suspect]. The bottom line is, people that Kristen knew, who were texting her and said there’s this girl who has stolen from us and we think it’s this person in the article and she’s saying she’s on your television show [VPR] and her name is Faith. And when you’re on a show like Vanderpump Rules, your existence on that show is kind of dependent on sticking your nose in other people’s conflict, or creating conflict that might be woven into a storyline. This is completely my fault because I was absolutely wrong, but it wasn’t just a photo that we saw. There were other reasons why we thought that. I legitimately thought we were solving crime and I was completely completely wrong.”
You can’t just spend a couple minutes explaining why you weren’t that wrong and then in the final breath say you were wrong. That is NOT an apology.
On her infamous ‘Nazi chic’ selfie controversy
Also in 2018 was when Stassi first got in big trouble for racial insensitivity, captioning a social media pic with the phrase “Nazi chic.” Ew. She explains:
“It was poor joke among me and my friends, and it was so wrong. I have spent my life as a privileged person and it is my fault. I have to say this, that I had not educated myself before. It’s absolutely my fault that I didn’t know better. The issue is, I did not know better. I was so used to making jokes at other people’s expense. … ‘Nazi Chic’ was a joke because I look like that in the outfit that I was wearing and that was about me.”
On being perceived as racist by the general public
The best Stassi can muster here is still denying she was racist at all, despite all the evidence to the contrary:
“I’m someone who messed up quite a few times. I am the reason why I am in this situation. And, I think a lot of people wanted me to focus on this ‘cancel culture’ and whether I was a victim or not and it’s not how I feel at all. Just going out to the grocery store or a restaurant and wondering if that’s what people think and throughout this whole thing, I’ve recognized that I never felt like I was a racist. I don’t have hate in my heart. But, I have recognized that I wasn’t anti-racist, I wasn’t. That’s something I’ve been learning throughout all of this.”
Right. She wasn’t anti-racist. That was the problem.
On educating herself about Black history and culture
At least she’s trying to fix her ignorance — by hiring someone to educate her. Seriously!
“I meet with a diversity teacher/coach once a week [via Zoom]. I’ve spent the last three months, yes, working with a teacher about everything and there’s so much that I didn’t know. I wanted to have a safe space to ask questions. And talk about these things. I didn’t want to just talk to my friends about them. I didn’t understand that just because something wasn’t about race for me, that doesn’t mean it’s not about race for the other person, because I’m bring my experience of a white privileged woman to this situation and she’s bringing her experience as a Black woman into this situation, and because it’s about race for her, it is about race and that’s something that I’ve realized.”
On criticizing #OscarsSoWhite & Black Lives Matter
Detecting a pattern? Yep, Stassi has a history of these kinds of problematic statements made from a place of total privilege, including saying she was “really sick of everyone making everything about race” during the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. She says now:
“I was a Karen who basically said, ‘But what about all lives matter?’ Black people are dying because they’ve been oppressed for 400 years. All lives can’t matter until Black lives matter and that’s something that I’ve realized in doing classes.”
That’s not exactly the message, but we do appreciate that she realizes she was being a Karen. She continues:
“I ask my coach all the time about how to best talk to a child about this, because I mentioned earlier — I think the weeks we focused on Black history, a light went off in my head and just learning about everything for a couple weeks straight, all at once, I had never thought about the oppression that Black people face in that way. I didn’t understand. It’s my fault that I didn’t educate myself.”
Why She’s done with reality TV
You can’t refuse to hire her, she quits!
“No, that ship has sailed [on returning to a reality show]. And my life feels very different right now. I think when something like this happens and you get pregnant on top of it, you take inventory of your life and you think what is going to be the best for my future child, and I think getting drunk and starting conflict and misbehaving on a reality show isn’t my journey anymore.”
It’s probably for the best…
See more from Stassi (below):
Next, Stassi discusses how difficult it’s been for her to be perceived as racist as she re-integrates herself into society:
And finally, the former reality TV star weighs in on the moment she learned she’d been fired from Vanderpump Rules, and the whether the greater ‘cancel culture’ idea was at play behind it:
Whew!
That is quite a lot to take in on the Stassi Schroeder World Apology Tour’s debut, y’all. But are you buying her act? She seems to be trying at least, but is it authentic?
Sound OFF about all of this with your take down in the comments (below)…
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