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Credit: Nicole Weingart/Bravo, Instagram
Jo Wenberg called out Kristen Doute for discussing her mental health, slammed Katie Maloney’s “mean girl energy,” revealed what was hidden about her relationship with Tom Schwartz – and what surprised her at the Vanderpump Rules reunion.
Throughout the season, castmates shaded Jo over her romance with Schwartz, which occurred after his split from his ex-wife Katie. Many costars joined the bandwagon against Jo without questioning the narrative against her.
On the “Rachel Goes Rogue” podcast, Jo was asked about Kristen’s suggestion that she was unhinged, and can’t handle people visiting her apartment.
“It’s very frustrating to have somebody diagnose me who hasn’t talked to me for three years plus,” said Jo of her former friend. “If anything, if I had a mental health situation, she consciously wants to hurt me basically by pushing me forward.”
Jo also addressed the “mean girl energy” from the cast.
“The mean girl energy … really only stemmed from Katie,” she explained. “[It] started when I started dating — I’m gonna be honest — when Tom Schwartz and I started dating, and it mostly came from Katie and then Kristen … and then it trickled into them being confused that I would film.”
“The most hate I got was from [certain members of] the cast,” she explained. “The mean girl energy has still not stopped. It’s every day. It’s consistent. It’s been two-plus years of people having followers.”
She hinted that certain cast members would “turn the cheek” on her in public or “move away.”
Jo said she closed her ears during that painful scene at Hotel Ziggy because she didn’t want to hear the “meanness, the angle, the aggression [from castmembers]. It’s still not stopping.”
“Katie and Ariana were not nice to me, and they don’t even know me,” she added. “The meanness from Katie [came] from the fact that she just did not want Schwartz to date anybody.”
Jo started to cry after host Raquel Leviss read through the list of the false things the cast called her: “Crackhead, crazy, rat girl, sociopath, a f**king liar, sloppy Jo, spooky, psycho.”
Concerning her relationship status with Schwartz, Jo said she no longer has Schwartz as a support system, and this was a mutual decision.
“We don’t talk anymore,” she shared. “We’re going to do a little bit of a boundary situation, and that doesn’t mean that we might not talk in the future, but for right now, you know, it doesn’t mean that I don’t miss him. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t miss me.”
“The one thing that wasn’t there probably was trust,” said Jo, who indicated that Schwartz wanted to have his cake and eat it too – and treated her as his secret side piece. She said she “should have” left, but he always roped her back in.
“At some point, and I don’t know when, I was not aware of when he stopped loving me,” she added, explaining that they would tell each other they loved each other. “I was probably the last to know.”
“The cameras would come up and it was like I didn’t even exist,” she said. “It was mind-blowingly tough … Then we’d film again, and he would make up these things and say that like we were both dating other people and I wasn’t dating anybody else. I guess [this] was his way of saying that he was dating somebody else. I was the last to know … I got mentally f**ked up. Like I’ve never said that before. I haven’t been able to kind of get out of bed unless I’ve, you know, been doing hair and stuff. My job’s been taking care of me and the church and like just being able to have a routine.”
Despite everything, Jo and Schwartz are not on “bad terms,” and she wishes him “all the best with his new girlfriend.”
Addressing the reunion (which Jo recently attended), she shared her belief that the cast now has a different perspective on her and Schwartz’s relationship.
“At the reunion … the cast really was under the impression that I was lying about my relationship with Schwartz,” she said. “They were baffled. It was really neat to see kind of like a gasp of like, ‘Oh [Schwartz] not only lied to Jo, but [he] also lied to us … also lied to Andy … It’s very clear throughout the season that you guys were together, but we all thought Jo was the liar and when in reality, Jo was the one who was being honest’ … And you know, Katie apologized to me too … [and] Scheana was giving me a tissue.”
Jo said Lala was “matter of fact” at the reunion as she was “calling out” Katie, Ariana and even Scheana Shay. She also claimed Raquel was a “massive topic of conversation.”
