If anyone knows what it’s like to tape a reunion in the midst of a scandal, it’s Lala Kent, and she’s happy to pass along what she learned from the experience.
On the latest episode of her Untraditionally Lala podcast, the former Vanderpump Rules and current star of The Valley gave the cast of Summer House some advice on walking into their upcoming Reunion filming after West Wilson and Amanda Batula’s relationship announcement blew up that whole friend group, similar to what happened on ‘Vanderpump Rules’ when Scandoval broke.
During the podcast episode (which was tellingly titled “Lala’s Warning to Summer House: Don’t Do the Reunion Like I Did”), Lala discussed the similarities between the Amanda/West scandal (aka “Scamanda”) and “Scandoval” (the name given to the discovery during Season 10 that Tom Sandoval was having an affair with Raquel Leviss behind his then-girlfriend Ariana Madix‘s back).
“Now, obviously, when Scamanda happened … it was very much reminding people of the scandal that happened on ‘Vanderpump Rules,’ and what a time to be alive and involved in it!” Lala said. “But it’s also something that consumes you when you’re a part of a cast that’s in a scandal like that. I just keep going back and putting myself in that position because it’s extremely overwhelming.”
Lala added that, by the time that season’s Reunion rolled around, she was “out for blood.”
“Sandoval was never someone who was ever in my corner. He constantly was reminding me of my past and my lies, and he went into that Reunion Season 10 with that same f**king energy,” Lala said. “Raquel had called me a mistress. Like, I was ready to lose my f**king mind, and I did, you guys saw it, but then what happened is I went so heavy in the paint that I kind of set myself up for failure.”
Fans (and co-stars) turned on Lala in Season 11 as she seemed to soften on Tom while growing distant from Ariana. Because of this, Lala encouraged the ‘Summer House’ crew to learn from her example, particularly the cast members not directly involved in the current relationship drama (i.e, Amanda, her estranged husband Kyle Cooke, West and his ex-girlfriend Ciara Miller, who was also once one of Amanda’s closest friends).
“[M]y advice to most of the cast would be try your hardest to say exactly when you mean but know that time changes everything and the audience is not sympathetic to that and they look at us like we power on for a show and power off until we’re ready to film again,” she said. “They don’t see us when cameras aren’t up. And, even when cameras are up, they see such a small piece of it that.
“When cameras go down and you’re done filming the Reunion, you go back to your real life— because you’re not Kyle, you’re not Amanda, you’re not Ciara, you’re not West—and you start thinking about the things that are important to you, personally, and what you want…”
Lala added that, when the scandal calms down and cameras eventually pick back up, the audience may turn on a cast member if they see a “softer version of you.”
“You run the risk of being put in my position where the audience lightly cancels you. They don’t appreciate a change of heart, especially one that happens very quickly in their eyes,” she said.
As with her former and current shows, Lala reminded listeners that ‘Summer House’ is built around a lot of real relationships, which adds to the show’s appeal and also makes the current scandal a bigger hit for the cast.
‘[T]hese people have just deep-rooted history from the time they were very, very young, and it is rare that a new cast member is introduced without super-deep history” she said. “… this is like, ‘We used to get wasted together when we first moved to New York, we’ve been in touch ever since,’ and then they show a flashback of, you know, a party that was happening on ‘Summer House’ and there’s their face, there’s receipts for how close the group is.
“When something like this happens, the Scamanda of it all, you cannot recover and, in return, the show is just not the same because you don’t want to film together. You don’t want to be around each other,” she said. “It happened with ‘Vanderpump Rules.’”
In the case of ‘Vanderpump Rules,’ those relationship schisms led to the show being rebooted with a brand-new cast, a fate Lala hopes doesn’t befall ‘Summer House.’
To ensure their cast isn’t replaced, Lala recommended that the ‘Summer House’ cast not repeat her mistakes.
“I wish I wouldn’t have gone as hard at the Reunion, and I didn’t realize that until I was kind of put in hot water with the audience where I’m like, ‘Oh, this is what it feels like. I participated in two other people feeling this way and it is a very dark feeling and I’m experiencing, like, a grain of sand compared to what I was feeding into with Tom and Raquel,’” she said.
Lala went on to express regret over some of her post-Scandoval actions.
“I think there was a way to kind of talk about it and joke around about it without being so [mean]. I mean, I was posting things about Raquel with f**king 50 Cent songs that were talking about throwing stones when you live in a glass house and if you’ve got a glass jaw you should watch your mouth because I’ll break your face,” she said. “What the f**k are you talking about?
“And then, like, her saying she’ll be at the reunion and I posted, “We can’t wait to see you Raquel” tagged her with like the devil emoji. Like, you’re entering my lair and I’m about to go f**king off. It was just like, ‘what are you doing?’ But that comes with life experience, going, ‘Oh, I now know how this feels, I probably wouldn’t do that again.’”
She then singled out one ‘Summer House’ particular cast member.
“I did see someone sent me something where, or I was tagged in it, someone was hoping that [Lindsay Hubbard] would come in with the same Lala energy to this Reunion as I came into the Season 10 Reunion,” she said. “… I think that she has a lot going on in her life, she’s got her own world happening. After you have kids, that f**king happens. But I hope she does not come in with Lala energy, I don’t want that for her.
“That level of anger that I was feeling,you guys, although I look back and I go, ‘That girl was a bad bitch,’ I don’t recognize her much,” Lala added. “I don’t recognize the Lala that I was at that Reunion.”
Lala admitted having a swift reaction to the energy she brought to her Reunion.
“I just came home, I sobbed and I felt like I had been emotionally robbed,” she said, adding that she doesn’t want any of that for the ‘Summer House’ crew.
“My hope for all of us is that’s going to be a very entertaining Reunion, which I know that it will be,” she said. “I just hope they move differently than we did because you move the way we did and the show ends. …There’s nothing like filming a TV show. There was nothing like filming ‘Vanderpump Rules,’ and I don’t want that to end for them and I certainly don’t want that to end for us [as fans].”
As of press time, no air date has been released for the ‘Summer House’ Reunion.
One Response
Oh Lala that’s some lukewarm and self-centered advice. It’s wasn’t that season or the reunion that killed your likability it was the NEXT SEASON where you Scheana got weirdly jealous and started hating Ariana. THEN all your actions and words started to reflect that deep down anger and jealousy. But while doing the producers dirty work to ensure a next season and trying to force Ariana to hang out with Tom habitually crossing boundaries she firmly set. This was bad enough but then, THEN YOU HAD A LITERAL TODDLER MELTDOWN on the last episode crying about why/how Ariana gets EVERYTHING!
I humored you when claimed to be Tupac, don’t really care about your ex or your situation but girl …. Going hard at the reunion was not where it all went wrong.