Lala Kent Wonders If Criticism of Ariana Led to Pump Rules Firings

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Credit: Bravo

Lala Kent believes she may be responsible for the recent recasting of Vanderpump Rules.

While discussing the firings of the season 11 cast on Amazon Live last week, Lala, 34, admitted to wondering if breaking the fourth wall by calling out Ariana Madix, 39, for refusing to film with her ex-boyfriend, Tom Sandoval, 42, after his months-long affair with Rachel “Raquel” Leviss, 30, was the “nail in the coffin” for their time on the show.

“I do often wonder if I would’ve kept my mouth shut — like, if a producer wouldn’t have stepped in and told me that I’m allowed to say the things that I said off-camera about filming — if the show would’ve been able to go on,” Lala shared on December 19, via Us Weekly. “Or if I was just the final nail in the coffin. I guess we’ll never know.”

According to Lala, who welcomed her second child in September, she wasn’t too upset when she learned she would not be returning to Pump Rules for season 12.

“I’ve spoken about this many times, so I apologize if I’m boring you,” she continued. “I felt like I started mourning Vanderpump Rules the moment I purged on that finale. So not only did I know it was coming to an end after that, but I feel like the moment we started filming season 11 it was going to be the last.”

“It just felt like there was nothing — it was broken. It was very broken. So I feel OK with it. I feel very much at peace,” she noted.

As Pump Rules fans will recall, Lala was critical of Ariana’s decision to forgo a one-on-one filming session with Sandoval, saying that it allowed Ariana to “dictate” how the show played out. Meanwhile, Ariana argued that she was being genuine and real in not wanting to be around him.

“If you want to talk in show terms, me walking away from that conversation was a lot more interesting than me sitting there and having it [with Sandoval],” she reasoned. “Was that not a better ending to your season? To give you another season for another paycheck?”

“It hurts my feelings a lot because I was trying so hard. I feel like it is our job to live our lives and I am living authentically walking away from that. I could have done it for the show but I don’t think our show thrives when we aren’t fully real. And that was not real on my part,” she added. 

Still, Lala felt that Ariana failed to do her part for the sake of the cast as a whole.

Vanderpump Rules season 12 is expected to go into production with an all-new cast sometime in early 2025.