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Credit: Charles Sykes/Bravo
Jax Taylor opened up about his issues with Lisa Vanderpump after she accused him of suggesting she was “superfluous” to the show on Tuesday’s episode of Vanderpump Rules.
As estranged wife Brittany Cartwright, 35, also weighed in, admitting to feeling that she and Jax, 44, no longer mattered to Lisa, 63, once they exited the show in December 2020, Jax criticized the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum for failing to reach out to them following the April 2021 birth of their now-3-year-old son Cruz.
“I can’t even pronounce the word. That word is nowhere near this brain,” Jax clarified on the April 23 episode of the Pump Rules: After Show.
According to Jax, he felt offended by Lisa for not honoring their past relationship with one another.
“I was a little upset because I think — I‘m not trying to toot my own horn or anything — but I was in this from the beginning and I think I helped create a masterpiece,” he explained. “She was a huge figure in my life. I spent over a decade of my life with you. I’ve had heart-to-hearts with you. I’ve been over your house crying. You’ve been crying to me. When you had issues on [RHOBH], you would come to me and say, ‘You’re the only one I could talk to.’ We had some moments.”
“I just felt like I didn’t mean anything to her,” he continued.
While Jax said he wasn’t too bothered when Lisa didn’t reach out to him and Brittany after they left Pump Rules, he noted that he was hurt after not hearing from her when Cruz was born.
“I’m bringing a child into this world, which a lot of people didn’t think that was going to happen, not even a phone call, not a congratulations, nothing, not even to my wife who’s been so nice to you?” he asked. “It bothered me … All I needed was a congratulations. I don’t need gifts or anything.”
Looking back at the time she spent on Pump Rules, Brittany said she “always looked up to [Lisa].”
“She always acted like she was a mother figure to us, especially to Jax. They were extremely close and then we’re off the show and it just kind of felt like she didn’t care about us anymore,” Brittany admitted. “[She] never reached out to us, never talked to us, never seeing if we were okay. I had Cruz, didn’t hear a word from her, she never checked on me throughout my entire pregnancy and I had a very tough pregnancy.”
Even after welcoming Cruz, Brittany said she heard nothing from Lisa — until a gift showed up eight weeks later, following Jax’s public reveal that Lisa had yet to reach out.
“We did get a gift from her but we never heard anything before that,” Brittany confirmed.
Regarding the gift they received from Lisa, Jax said he and Brittany received it “within hours” of him calling her out.
“[It] said, ‘I was sending it.’ It hurt my feelings. And I wasn’t trying to belittle Lisa. I almost kind of like, I was shaking my head, like ‘How dare you? I’ve given my soul, my heart to the show,’” he explained. “It bothered me and then God forbid we don’t [reach out to] her right away when [Ken Todd] fell off the horse.”
Of course, it was not Ken, but rather Lisa who suffered a horse-riding accident in 2022.
“I did reach out to her whenever she got in her horse accident. She was like, ’Thank you so much. I miss you.’ She’ll say stuff like that [but] Cruz doesn’t get invited to [Pandora Sabo]’s birthdays and stuff. It’s just very odd,” Brittany noted.
When Jax was then asked if he’s talked to Lisa since their encounter on Pump Rules, he confirmed he had not.
“No. Not because I don’t want to … I’m open to it now because we squashed it. She’s busy. We’re busy. I don’t go to Hollywood that much, either. I don’t make myself available for her to see me or anything like that,” he shared. “[But] hopefully, we squashed it. I think we did. We had a heart-to-heart. She said what she needed to say. I said what I needed to say and I think we moved past it like adults.”
When Tom Schwartz, 40, then wondered if Jax would return to SUR and ask Lisa for his job back, Tom Sandoval, 41, interjected.
“I might have to,” he admitted.
“I know. Me too, dude,” Schwartz replied.
Vanderpump Rules season 11 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on Bravo.
