Kyle Richards is reeling from the loss of her “very, very, very best friend” Lorene Shea.
“Lorene was my other half. We always said we were separated at birth, only she was almost 6-feet tall and blonde,” Kyle, 54, revealed in her confessional during the Wednesday, December 13, episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. “I met Lorene in the second grade, we were 7 years old, and we had been best friends ever since.”
Kyle referred to her late friends as “the most important person in my life outside of my family.” She said Lorene knew more about her than “anybody,” including her estranged husband, Mauricio Umansky. “Your best friend for all those years knows everything,” Kyle added.
Lorene died by suicide in May 2022.
“I can’t even say the word. She took her life on May 1st,” the Bravo star told her therapist in an emotional scene during Wednesday’s episode, which was filmed late last year. “I don’t know what happened, because she was so together. I mean, literally, in my will she was in charge of my children, my money, my everything. She was so together and then all of a sudden — I don’t know what happened. I don’t have answers. it’s so frustrating to me.”
Lorene made a brief appearance alongside Kyle on RHOBH in 2015. When she passed, Kyle shared a heartfelt tribute to her late friend.
“Not that long ago she started to suffer from debilitating depression. She had always been a happy person. How did this happen? All who loved her rallied around her and did everything that could be done to get her help. But the system is broken,” Kyle wrote on Instagram in May 2022. “The system made it impossible to get her the help she needed. This past Sunday we lost Lorene. The system failed her! The system failed her loved ones who are now left in unbearable pain. I will do whatever it takes to try & help change the laws that are in place that prevent people from getting the help they need.”
Further discussing Lorene’s death during Wednesday’s RHOBH episode, Kyle said she “never imagined something like this could happen.”
In the aftermath of Lorene’s death — plus, the ongoing fighting with her eldest sister, Kathy Hilton, and discourse in her marriage — Kyle admitted she’s doing “all the things” to feel safe.
“Just trying to surround myself around people that I love and love me, support me and only want the best for me and I only want the best for them. Taking care of my body,” she said. “I’m just trying to do all the things that are going to make me feel stronger. It’s been working.”
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills airs on Bravo Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
