Lips. Hair. Harry Hamlin. Is there anything else to know about Lisa Rinna?
Quite a bit, as she shares in her new memoir, You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It, which was released Tuesday. In it, the banished Traitor, one-time Real Housewives of Beverly Hills villain, Dancing with the Stars contestant, soap opera ingenue, QVC pitchwoman and self-proclaimed hustler talks about her life in front of and behind the camera, from growing up in Medford, Oregon, to staking a claim in the 90210 and staying in the spotlight for more than 30 years.
Here are five things we learned about the woman who calls herself Lisa F***ing Rinna and her career in reality television from the book.
[Note for ‘Traitors’ fans: The book was written when Lisa was filming the current season, so no dish about her feud with Colton Underwood or time in the turret.]
Her Late Mother Convinced Her (Via a Dream) to Quit ‘Real Housewives’
Lisa began filming the 12th season of ‘RHOBH’ weeks after her mother Lois, who’d been featured on the show, died. Grieving and fighting with her castmates, Lisa reported that season to be one of the worst times of her life, but she was still unsure about calling it quits after filming wrapped.
“At the end of every season, after I’d gone so hard and gave my all, I would turn to [husband] Harry and say, ‘I’m done. Don’t ever let me go back. I’m not going back,’” she wrote. “Then I’d go back. It’s kind of like childbirth. All the stress, the drama, the trauma. Then months would go by between seasons and I’d kind of forget how hard it was, and think: ‘Eh, it wasn’t that bad. Alright, I’ll go back and do it again!’
“I was still trying to make a decision when, a few months after my mom died, she came to me in a dream,” Lisa continued. “‘You need to leave now,’ Lois said, ‘It’s time for you to go.’ This is the juncture where it all changed. The aha moment. And my mom orchestrated the whole thing. Because guess what? If she hadn’t come to me, I would still be there.”
She Had to Pay for Her Own Fashion as a Reality TV Star, Even at Reunions
Housewives and their Bravo ilk have to dress well, as Lisa shared, but that doesn’t mean the reality stars are getting any help from the network with their expensive wardrobes.
“I don’t think fans of the Housewives franchises understand that we get ZERO clothing allowance, but we are expected to dress to the nines and never repeat outfits. The producers just expect it. This unwritten rule can bankrupt a bitch if she’s not careful. No one on Housewives is making any money. I can tell you that. Because you’re spending it all. I spent most of my salary on clothes.”
To keep up, Lisa wrote she begged, borrowed and nearly went broke.
“I’m ashamed to admit that I bought my first season Reunion dress from NET-A-PORTER, left the tag on, and returned it right after the taping,” she wrote. “But I felt so guilty about it I never did that again and almost when broke buying bazillion-dollar dresses for the next seven finales. No designer is going to loan a dress for the toxic mess that is a ‘Housewives’ reunion.”
She Credits Her Signature Haircut with Helping Her Land Her First Big Role
When Lisa joined the ‘Real Housewives,’ costar Brandi Glanville shamed her for having the same hair for 20 years. In the book, Lisa explains that cut is what got her cast on Days of Our Lives and she’s been identified with it ever since.
“Every time I’ve done something that everyone tells me not to do, it always produces something good,” she wrote. “Case in point: I’d auditioned against exactly 211 girls for the role of Billie Reed on ‘Days.’ I went to the first audition with long hair and got the coveted callback. You’re supposed to go back into your second audition looking exactly the same, but meh, I wasn’t feeling it. I’d just broken up with Peter [Barton], and you know how people drastically change their hair after a relationship ends? (Think [Paul Kemsley]’s buzzcut after the split from Dorit.)
“In a perfect storm moment, I met a girl with gorgeous hair in my acting class. I asked her if her stylist would come to my place to do my hair. And that is how the famous/infamous Rinna vintage pixie shag came to be: this random guy came to my little apartment in Brentwood and chopped off my hair. I have no idea who he was and never saw him again, but it was 1992 and I was 29 years old.”
She Says Being a Housewife Isn’t Just for a Season; It’s for Life
Yes, ‘Traitors’ fans, it’s true, Housewives do stick together, at least according to Lisa. Even though she remains at odds with some of her former ‘Beverly Hills’ castmates, she believes something unshakable exists between all current and former members of the Housewives franchise.
“No matter what has occurred between us, we can never take away the fact that we have been through a wild experiment together that no one else on earth will ever fully comprehend,” Lisa wrote about her ‘RHOBH’ costars. “It’s like when soldiers go through a war together, go back home, have a few years of space to process it, then reconnect and marvel over it all. I don’t want to get canceled for comparing real combat to Woman Yelling at Cat, but the show fits.
“This unbreakable bond goes as far as the other franchises, too,” she continued. “As I’m writing this there have been about 150 Housewives so far. We’re in the same battle and part of an elite club. We don’t have a secret handshake, but there’s almost like a wink-wink we have with one another.”
She’s Done with Bravo (Or Is She?)
After leaving ‘RHOBH,’ Lisa shared she’d had enough not just with the reality show but with its network and cut all ties.
“The last year of ‘RHOBH’ was really hard,” she wrote. “Probably the worst year of my life. That’s saying a lot. But I survived it, and to come out of that and move to a better place is so life-affirming. To heal, I’ve basically gone ‘no contact’ with Bravo. Because when you’re in that universe, not only are you stuck in your own low vibration, the fans who watch the show and the energy coming at you can be low vibration.
“I’m grateful to all the fans who watched because they truly enjoyed me and my time on the show and wanted to support me. But there’s a lot of people not watching out of support. In fact, a lot of people are watching hoping you’ll fall. Those are the low vibration fans I’m talking about. I protect my peace now so wholeheartedly. I would never allow myself back in that place because it’s so hard to pull yourself out of it.”
Lisa did appear on the Las Culturistas Culture Awards on the network last year and was a contestant on the current season of ‘The Traitors,’ which appears on Bravo’s streamer/sister network Peacock and the series’ reunions are hosted by Bravo don Andy Cohen, so maybe she’s not done done with the network after all.
You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It is now available from Dey Street Books. Order it with The Ashley’s Amazon Associate link!
(Photos: Dev; Instagram)
