Broken hearts club. Vicki Gunvalson compared her relationship with ex-fiancé Steve Lodge to Lala Kent and Randall Emmett’s breakup, just weeks before Lodge announced he’s engaged again.
The Real Housewives of Orange County alum, 56, reflected on her romance with Lodge, 63, on December 22, after hearing Kent, 31, opened up about the ups and downs in her own relationship with ex-fiancé Emmett, 50, on the “Skinny But Not Fat” podcast one day prior.
“At the beginning of our time together, I was being spoiled a lot. That was not how it was throughout our time together,” the Vanderpump Rules star explained on the December 21 episode of the podcast. “I always said, ‘If I ended up in a box tomorrow, I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather live in a box with.’ I really did [love him].”
The Utah native, who was engaged to the Midnight in the Switchgrass director for three years before calling it quits in the fall of 2021, noted that her time with Emmett is now tainted.
“I was doing anything I possibly could to make sure that he and I would stand the test of time. To feel like I was doing all that really for nothing [stinks],” Kent, who shares 9-month-old daughter Ocean with Emmett, said. “I look back on these years with him and I can’t remember it. I can’t remember any of it.”
Gunvalson shared how her broken engagement resembled Kent’s heartbreak by commenting on the podcast’s social media post last month.
“Sounds very similar to the man who stole almost 6 years of my life that I will never get back,” the OG Housewife wrote via Instagram in December. “So hurtful, so wrong.”
The Orange County, California, resident’s comment came just weeks before Lodge confirmed on Monday, January 3, that he is engaged to Janis Carlson three months after Us Weekly broke then news that he split from Gunvalson.
“We are completely head over heels in love and can’t wait to be husband and wife. Janis is a beautiful person, inside and out,” Lodge exclusively told Us on Monday. “We have incredible chemistry, we’re very compatible, emotionally connected and have mutual respect for each other. We are equally yoked and look forward to happiness.”
The businessman, who proposed to Carlson on December 20, said he is excited to tie the knot in April. The news came after Us confirmed in September 2021 that Lodge and Gunvalson called it quits after more than five years together.
A source told Us at the time that Lodge broke up with Gunvalson while she was filming The Real Housewives spinoff show in the Berkshires.
“After he told her this, she was traumatized. It ruined her,” the insider said. A second source, however, noted that the former couple “had not been getting along for a long time.”
While the TV personality initially said that she wished her ex-fiancé “the best life has to offer and to be happy” post-split, she later accused him of having an affair.
“He’s been flaunting around my town in OC making out in public places. It’s disgusting,” Gunvalson claimed in October 2021.
Lodge, for his part, has denied that he was unfaithful during their relationship and claimed their romance was over well before they parted ways.
“We had not been in an intimate relationship since September of 2020. I have been living in Puerto Vallarta in my own condo, not hers since the beginning of 2021,” he said in a statement to Us in October 2021. “I wanted to move on with my life and I could not do that with Vicki.”
