A former supervising producer on ‘Vanderpump Rules’ is spilling the Pumptini-tea on one of the most memorable (and few hilarious) moments to come out of Scandoval.
On a recent episode of Heather McDonald’s Juicy Scoop podcast, former supervising ‘VP’ producer Patrick McDonald gave listeners the backstory on how Lisa Vanderpump’s frequently seen but rarely heard husband, Ken Todd, ended up being the one who essentially helped expose Tom Sandoval and Rachel Leviss‘ affair.
“ … I will tell you a story about a very iconic moment from ‘Vanderpump Rules’– the Scandoval of it all,” Patrick began.
He went on to reference a key moment in the Scandoval affair, in which Rachel spent the night at Sandoval and Ariana’s house while Ariana was out of town. As viewers may remember, Rachel ended up showing up late to work at SUR the next day, which only Lisa knew about at the time.
“So now, Lisa knew this because she owns the restaurant,” Patrick said. “However, no one else [in the main cast] works at the restaurant, so no one else could have known this to get this information to the rest of the cast … so we needed to get the fact [out] that [Rachel] slept over at Tom Sandoval’s house, while Ariana was out of town…”
While the logical move would have been for Lisa to share the sleepover secret with someone on the cast herself, Patrick claimed that Lisa wasn’t willing to take part in the “gossiping,” explaining to producers that she couldn’t “get in the middle of this mess.”
As a result, Patrick said producers had to come up with a way to get the information to somebody else on the cast, with that person ultimately being Katie Maloney.
“The scene that I was presented with that day was Katie Maloney was coming over to [Lisa and Ken’s house] Villa Rosa, to do what? Make more sandwiches, to do some sandwich tastings with Lisa,” he recalled. “So this information needed to get to Katie in this scene, but Lisa was not going to do it.
“The only other f**king person I had to work with was Ken,” he continued. “So I’m like … I got to get Ken to f**king tell Katie that [Rachel] slept at Sandoval’s last night. So, like, how the hell are you going to make that believable, right?”
Patrick claimed that Lisa’s unwillingness to be a “transferrer of information” in that moment forced producers to get “super creative.” It was eventually decided that Lisa would tell Ken about Rachel’s sleepover at Sandoval’s, as it wouldn’t raise viewers’ eyebrows if she was simply sharing information with her spouse. Afterwards, Ken would “conveniently come into the room” while Katie and Lisa were making sandwiches and share what Lisa had previously told him.
Patrick said Ken was instructed to walk into the shot once a PA tapped him on the shoulder and deliver the line: “I can’t believe Raquel slept at Sandoval’s house last night! Oh my God!” Ken was even told that he didn’t have to stop walking and could deliver the line “like a drive-by.”
Despite the seemingly clear instructions, when it came time for Ken to deliver his “drive-by” line, the scene didn’t go off without a hitch.
“ … I will tell you, because Ken, God love him, he’s an older gentleman, he didn’t nail it the first time,” Patrick said. “So we did shoot him walking in and saying that three times, and then Katie was like, ‘What’s going on? What is he saying?’
“I’m sure [Katie] f**king knew, ‘Well, clearly they had to get somebody to carry this bone, and LVP is not going to do it,’” he continued. “But that’s the thing, [Lisa] would just sit there and let her husband come in and do that and be like, ‘Oh gosh, dear! Oh Ken, why would you say that? Well, cat’s out of the bag. Sorry, Katie, better go tell Lala [Kent].’”
In a clip from the podcast episode posted to Patrick’s Instagram page this week, Katie chimed in on her on-camera reaction to Ken’s hilarious season-stealing moment.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Lolol,” she commented.
Watch a clip of Ken’s award-winning performance below and click here for a clip from Patrick’s ‘Juicy Scoop’ interview.
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