Lala Kent Says Ariana Brought “Divaness” to Vanderpump Rules

Credit: Bravo

Lala Kent accused Ariana Madix of gray rocking and being a diva while appearing on Monday’s episode of Teddi Mellencamp and Tamra Judge‘s podcast.

While also responding to Katie Maloney, 37, and Tom Schwartz‘s recent shade, revealing that Vanderpump Rules producers stopped production on season 10 to request more from Ariana Madix, 38, and more, Lala, 33, suggested that Ariana has been gray-rocking, a term used for avoiding a toxic person by refusing to engage, since she first joined the show.

“Ariana said this season she was gray rocking. I’m like, you’ve been gray rocking from the jump, babe. There’s no change here except this year we actually need you to do something. And I know that sounds not nice and I’m not meaning for it to come across that way, but it was like for many many seasons before this happened, it was like it was okay for her to kind of be in the background. It was fine. It worked well,” Lala explained on the June 10 episode of Two Ts in a Pod. “You’re the main story, babe, I’m gonna need a little bit of something.”

Although Ariana may not have given as much to the cameras as certain members of the show expected, she did get more opportunities.

“When Ariana started getting opportunities outside of Vanderpump Rules, that’s great for all of us. It wasn’t like I sat here and I was just little old me. I have people screaming my name on the streets. The show reached a level that it never would have reached without this,” Lala said of Ariana being thrust into the spotlight following Tom Sandoval‘s cheating scandal. “And even though it was horrible, I was not mad at the opportunity she was getting outside of the show.”

As for what she was frustrated with, Lala continued, “What I started getting upset about is now we’re bringing a little bit of divaness to my place of work that I’ve been doing for eight years. I have a hard time when people think that they are bigger than the show.”

According to Lala, she believes Ariana and Katie, who she accused of refusing to share her true thoughts about Ariana at the reunion, share a trauma bond after experiencing breakups around the same time — both of which Rachel “Raquel” Leviss, 29, was involved with in some manner.

“Trauma bonds run deep. I’ve had a trauma bond before and they are thick. But neither of you better get over the trauma because once you start healing, bond is over,” Lala noted.

Earlier this month, following the May opening of Ariana and Katie’s sandwich shop, Something About Her, Lala got the attention of Katie by suggesting she was unaware of the opening. As Pump Rules fans may recall, the comment prompted Katie to accuse Lala of being dishonest.

“I knew they were having like 500 soft openings,” Lala clarified. “So when I said I didn’t know they were open, I didn’t know that they were open any given weekday, come have a sandwich. I’m sure that it was something that people were very excited about. This has been in the work since the season nine finale, right when they came up with the name. So I didn’t know that they were actually open for business. I knew they were doing like a soft opening.”

Continuing on about Ariana, Lala recalled producers wanting more from her castmate amid season 10, which was filmed amid Sandoval and Raquel’s affair.

“Cameras shut down season 10 for producers to talk to Ariana, like, ‘You gotta give something. You gotta care a little bit,’” she revealed. “And it’s if you’re the type of person where you’re like, ‘I just don’t care.’ Excellent. First of all, very jealous. I wish I could just not care. Second of all, I don’t know that [reality TV] is the space for you.”

As the 11th season of Pump Rules came to an end last month, the fourth wall of production was broken and Lala was vocal about wanting Ariana to do her job and speak to Sandoval on camera. Meanwhile, Schwartz, 40, shaded her for doing so, suggesting she was jeopardizing the show’s authenticity by treating it like a job and breaking the fourth wall.

In response to Schwartz’s claims against her, however, Lala said she believes that’s what makes the show “so interesting.”

“It’s no secret this is a produced show. If you watched us every single waking moment of the day, you couldn’t have a show. This is months of filming, months of editing. What you’re seeing is very much real. But there’s also the part where it is a television show to make sure that you are entertained,” she stated. “Although these things happened, the goal is to entertain you. And I resent him saying that me doing that jeopardized the show. In all actuality, we are filming a television show.”

In one of her more memorable moments, Lala accused Ariana of thinking she was “God” after Sandoval’s affair. And looking back, she still doesn’t understand why her castmates were scared to question her.

“Her word was Bible. Nothing was questioned … No one would ask the questions,” she explained. “And that’s why I was like, it was like she was God, like, ‘What I say is Bible.’”

Also on the podcast, Lala admitted that she received a ton of hate for season 11.

“It’s been my hardest season. I’m used to being the person who people don’t really dig, but the hate is very loud this season,” she admitted. “They go for like, ‘I feel bad for your child,’ and they start talking about me as a parent, which normally I can shake off. [But] I got pregnant … So the hormones were already like raging inside of me, and I was very sensitive.”

Vanderpump Rules is currently on pause.