Credit: Charles Sykes/Bravo
Crystal Kung-Minkoff is opening up about Lisa Rinna‘s betrayal.
As she chatted with Nick Viall, 43, on his podcast about the show, including what cast members aren’t allowed to do amid production, Crystal, 40, took aim at Lisa, 60, who left the show earlier this year after eight seasons, suggesting she went “too far” and intended to “hurt” Kathy Hilton, 64, with her meltdown claims of season 12.
But first, Crystal shared how Lisa brought up a conversation they had off-camera to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, leaving her completely “paralyzed” by the betrayal.
“I had lunch with [Lisa] after my first season, and she was like, ‘How’s it going? How was your first year?’ I was like, ‘It’s hard. You know, I had like 14 friends,’” Crystal recalled on the December 7 episode of The Viall Files.
As RHOBH fans will recall, Lisa said in a confessional last year that Crystal had suffered a falling out with 14 of her friends after joining the show in 2011.
“She brought it up on camera… She was asking me how the show was going for me, and you know I had some fallout because I did the show, and it was very challenging for me… Stuff like this triggers people in a way that you would never know until it happens. You can’t anticipate it. I was already going through my own fears about doing the show, let alone outside people’s feelings about it… So I just shared it with her,” Crystal explained.
After opening up to her co-star amid what she assumed was a private conversation, Crystal was taken aback by Lisa’s decision to go public with her personal heartbreak, especially considering Lisa was “very supportive” during their off-camera chat.
“She was very supportive and said it happens to everybody and every season you continue, it will still happen and… then it came up and I was paralyzed and I couldn’t even talk about it because I still was like in it,” she shared. “My friends are really important to me, like I’m very social. I like to work really hard for my friends.”
As for why she never confronted Lisa about her behavior, Crystal said the issue died off quickly since she “didn’t [engage].”
“I think she then knew I wasn’t going to talk about it and it just never went anywhere,” Crystal noted.
During filming on upcoming seasons of Housewives, Crystal said she and her castmates aren’t allowed to see one another off-camera.
“You don’t get together while you’re filming cause you’re not allowed to because, let’s say you and I are having a fight right, and then we go out to lunch off-camera and we make up. And then the next day we film it, sequentially it doesn’t make sense so you’re not allowed to do that so if I see someone off-camera, it’s going to be between seasons,” she revealed.
Getting back to Lisa, Crystal noted that certain co-stars have gone too far to create a good show.
“I think when it goes like off-camera. I think that’s what happened last season with ex-cast members. If you’re going to go for it on the show, I think that’s actually okay because you’re being direct with a person but like once we film, like let it go,” she stated. “Like let the show air, and you don’t need to taunt people online, and like jab at people. I just find that part is the stuff that goes too far.”
Regarding Lisa’s feud with Kathy, who she accused of threatening to “destroy” her sister Kyle Richards, 54, Crystal said things definitely went “too far.”
“That was too far for sure like getting, you know, media involved and all that, like it’s unnecessary because to me that’s when you break out of the commodore of what we’re actually doing because that’s when you’re just trying to hurt people,” she shared.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 13 airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on Bravo.
