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Credit: Roger Wong/INSTARimages
Lisa Vanderpump is reportedly being pushed out of the show she helped create.
According to a new report, the 64-year-old Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, who has acted as the executive producer of Vanderpump Rules since its start in 2013, will likely be getting less screentime when the series returns for its 12th season.
“I heard … Bravo has been trying to push Lisa Vanderpump out of the show,” Thea de Sousa, who recently published The Unofficial Vanderpump Rules Ultimate Trivia Book, told The U.S. Sun on October 28. “First of all her paycheck, [the] number that she adds to the show, second of all, her relevancy, with the cast having moved on from her restaurants.”
As fans will recall, when Pump Rules began, it was based out of Lisa’s SUR Lounge in West Hollywood. But now, 11 seasons later, none of the original group is working at the restaurant. So Lisa’s involvement doesn’t make as much sense as it once did.
“For the past season, they’ve been trying to minimize her contact with the show. That’s Bravo’s doing. That’s nothing to do with the cast. So people are perceiving that to be Lisa distancing herself, and it’s not. It’s the other way around,” Thea explained. “It’s the show trying to distance itself from Lisa. She’s at like a guest star level now on Vanderpump. It’s a lot less money.”
According to Thea, as producers look ahead to season 12, following at least one postponement on filming, the show is simply becoming too expensive for the network, with cast members including Ariana Madix, 39, reportedly making around $600,000 per year.
“You can imagine how completely just underwater Bravo is in terms of paying this cast, and that’s been the issue since spring,” Thea shared. “That’s been the reason why they didn’t film over the summer. They couldn’t handle the same contracts. So they had to start negotiating [with] people and trying to move people down from maybe main cast member to ‘friend of,’ which they had tried to do a couple [of] seasons before.”
Although a Bravo spokesperson denied the potential cast demotions, saying, “There is absolutely no truth to this reporting,” Lisa didn’t film as much with the group in season 11, only being seen in a handful of moments at her home.
Still, during an interview with The U.S. Sun earlier this year, she vowed, “We’ll be back.”
