Everything Kristen Doute Said About ‘Vanderpump Rules,’ Her Exes and More in ‘He’s Making You Crazy’

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Everything Kristen Doute Said About 'Vanderpump Rules,' Her Exes and More in ‘He’s Making You Crazy’

Kristen Doute knows people are always going to call her “crazy” — but for the Vanderpump Rules star, it’s no longer an insult. “A lot of this book is very self-deprecating. … It’s called He’s Making You Crazy, but we’re not literally blaming men for everything that we do,” Doute, 37, told Us Weekly exclusively ahead of the book’s Tuesday, June 2, release. “We’re just saying … you need to take [ownership] in your actions that make women feel the way that you claim that we are. When we’re called crazy or psycho because we’re feeling emotional, or, you know, we’re feeling untrusting because of past relationships or that current relationship.” Doute cowrote the book with How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days author Michele Alexander. And while He’s Making You Crazy doesn’t name names, Bravo viewers will know when Doute is referring to exes Tom Sandoval, James Kennedy, Brian Carter and more. “[Keeping the names out] had nothing to do with, like, protecting the innocent. I don’t think anyone is innocent in this book,” Doute told Us. “But I thought truly that it would be so much grander for the reader to read if it was just left as a simple key or like a pseudonym as we use often because I want women to be reading the story and not about the who.” Doute does want to make it clear, however, that the chapter about having an affair is indeed about her tryst with Jax Taylor. (Vanderpump Rules fans will recall Doute coming clean about sleeping with Taylor, 40, while he was trying to win back ex Stassi Schroeder. The T-shirt designer was dating Sandoval, 36, at the time.) [jwplayer PkzjcvhC-l3ahXupL] “I think the ‘I Lied’ chapter was probably the hardest one for me to write. … Everyone will know that that is about Jax,” Doute told Us. “I don’t say the names, but I just want everyone to know that did not happen with another person. I think it’s pretty apparent, so I’m not really giving anything away. But with that one it was difficult because I felt so much guilt about my mistake that I didn’t feel that I really deserved any sort of platform to speak my mind about it or say my piece. But at the end of the day, this is my book and this is my voice and with my self-love, I had to say, ‘You know what, I’m not blaming him for this, I’m actually taking the heat for it.’ … It’s not to take the blame off of myself, but it’s just to explain where my brain was at in that moment.” She added that she gave Taylor’s now-wife, Brittany Cartwright, a heads up. She also let Sandoval’s current girlfriend, Ariana Madix, peak at the pages. “I didn’t ask permission from anyone because essentially they’re my stories and I gave myself that right to write how I felt,” Doute explained. “But I did reach out to both Brittany and Ariana and just kind of gave them a heads up that there were going to be some things about, you know, Brittany’s husband and Ariana, her long term boyfriend. … I even let Ariana read a little bit of it in regarding the chapter that’s about Tom and Ariana. They were both like, you know, ‘Do you girl.’” Scroll through for the biggest Bravo bombshells from He’s Making You Crazy:

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Everything Kristen Doute Said About 'Vanderpump Rules,' Her Exes and More in ‘He’s Making You Crazy’

Kristen Doute knows people are always going to call her “crazy” — but for the Vanderpump Rules star, it’s no longer an insult. “A lot of this book is very self-deprecating. … It’s called He’s Making You Crazy, but we’re not literally blaming men for everything that we do,” Doute, 37, told Us Weekly exclusively ahead of the book’s Tuesday, June 2, release. “We’re just saying … you need to take [ownership] in your actions that make women feel the way that you claim that we are. When we’re called crazy or psycho because we’re feeling emotional, or, you know, we’re feeling untrusting because of past relationships or that current relationship.” Doute cowrote the book with How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days author Michele Alexander. And while He’s Making You Crazy doesn’t name names, Bravo viewers will know when Doute is referring to exes Tom Sandoval, James Kennedy, Brian Carter and more. “[Keeping the names out] had nothing to do with, like, protecting the innocent. I don’t think anyone is innocent in this book,” Doute told Us. “But I thought truly that it would be so much grander for the reader to read if it was just left as a simple key or like a pseudonym as we use often because I want women to be reading the story and not about the who.” Doute does want to make it clear, however, that the chapter about having an affair is indeed about her tryst with Jax Taylor. (Vanderpump Rules fans will recall Doute coming clean about sleeping with Taylor, 40, while he was trying to win back ex Stassi Schroeder. The T-shirt designer was dating Sandoval, 36, at the time.) [jwplayer PkzjcvhC-l3ahXupL] “I think the ‘I Lied’ chapter was probably the hardest one for me to write. … Everyone will know that that is about Jax,” Doute told Us. “I don’t say the names, but I just want everyone to know that did not happen with another person. I think it’s pretty apparent, so I’m not really giving anything away. But with that one it was difficult because I felt so much guilt about my mistake that I didn’t feel that I really deserved any sort of platform to speak my mind about it or say my piece. But at the end of the day, this is my book and this is my voice and with my self-love, I had to say, ‘You know what, I’m not blaming him for this, I’m actually taking the heat for it.’ … It’s not to take the blame off of myself, but it’s just to explain where my brain was at in that moment.” She added that she gave Taylor’s now-wife, Brittany Cartwright, a heads up. She also let Sandoval’s current girlfriend, Ariana Madix, peak at the pages. “I didn’t ask permission from anyone because essentially they’re my stories and I gave myself that right to write how I felt,” Doute explained. “But I did reach out to both Brittany and Ariana and just kind of gave them a heads up that there were going to be some things about, you know, Brittany’s husband and Ariana, her long term boyfriend. … I even let Ariana read a little bit of it in regarding the chapter that’s about Tom and Ariana. They were both like, you know, ‘Do you girl.’” Scroll through for the biggest Bravo bombshells from He’s Making You Crazy:

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On Dating Sandoval

The giveaway that Doute was writing about Sandoval? Noting that she had an ex who shaved his forehead.

“Once you start sharing jeans with your boyfriend, you start questioning your body image. Was I his arm candy, or was he mine? He was so charismatic he could make me weak in the knees just by eyef—king me — but was he eyef—king everyone else, too?” she wrote. “We would get ready together at his vanity, and when he said ‘you’re beautiful’ I wondered if he was talking to me or to himself. His flat iron, oh, his f—king flat iron. It was his most prized possession. Would he ever look at me the way he looked at it?”

Doute also wrote about her sex life — or lack thereof — with Sandoval.

“One night as he sat on our couch playing online poker for the eighth day in a row I put my foot down. Enough was enough. I got on my knees and just went for it. He was about to get the best blowjob of his life. And he pushed me away like a leper,” she wrote. “I was wearing f—king lingerie! I was twenty-six, hot, skinny, and drop-dead gorgeous. He would rather get two-pair, aces high than a BJ from his model girlfriend.”

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On Sandoval Cheating

Vanderpump Rules fans saw Doute and Sandoval’s relationship fall apart during season 2. In He’s Making You Crazy, she detailed discovering his “transgression” in Las Vegas. “He had cheated, I caught him, and he copped to it. Noble, sure, but I wasn’t ready for that,” she wrote. “If he had just lied to me, it would have been easier for me to deny it to myself, to explain it away, and to tell all our friends nothing had happened. … Plus, he didn’t want to break up with me. He wanted me to do the dirty work and break up with him.”

Doute admitted that she misplaced the blame on the women Sandoval cheated on her with. “I wasn’t proud of myself for coming for her. It was five minutes of satisfaction followed by hours of self-reflection,” she wrote, revealing that Sandoval told the other women that he was single and no longer with Doute. “I don’t know if ‘people cheat in Vegas’ is true for everybody, but it’s a cliché for a reason. What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas.”

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On Sleeping With Jax

Vanderpump Rules viewers know that Doute and Sandoval didn’t split over his cheating in Sin City. The twosome would stay together until it got out that she also had an affair — with Taylor, his best friend. While writing about the scandal, Doute compared her current status with Sandoval to Britney Spears and Kevin Federline’s short-lived reality show, Chaotic.

“To be honest, I don’t remember much. I know it happened. I know he wasn’t my boyfriend,” she wrote. “I know we were both drunk, but also that we made a mutual, consensual decision. I’m still not sure how it could have happened, but it did. I slept with my boyfriend’s best friend, who not too long before this used to date my former best friend.”

While Doute and Taylor pretended their hookup didn’t happen, they couldn’t ignore it after it happened a second time. “My boyfriend and I got into another one of our knock-down, drag-out arguments, and my boyfriend called that same friend to come pick me up and take me someplace else. Wasted. We were wasted, again. We were wasted a lot back then,” she wrote. “Looking back, I just wanted attention and affection, and it didn’t matter anymore from whom, or from where. I’d barely hugged my boyfriend, let alone had sex with him, in months. I was longing to feel desired, to know that I was still worth something. My self-love tank was entirely depleted, and I hated every minute of it.”

Doute noted that her tryst with Taylor wasn’t “planned” or “purposeful,” but it was “selfish.” She added that she wanted to “take it to [her] grave,” but it wasn’t long before Taylor spilled the secret — and Schroeder slapped her over it.

“What frustrates me to this day is that the guy was never held equally to blame. No one knew better than him how toxic my relationship was,” she wrote. “To me, back then, those brief moments of infidelity with him gave me a false sense of self-worth, a feeling of being desired that kept me from crawling deeper into my dark hole of self-loathing. … Years later this is still held against me, my Scarlet Letter, while the world has allowed him to let it go.”

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On Meddling in Sandoval and Ariana’s Relationship

During season 3 of Vanderpump Rules, viewers watched Doute try to expose Sandoval for being unfaithful to Madix, which he denied. A woman dubbed “Miami Girl” flew to Los Angeles to confront the bartender, but Sandoval maintained that he didn’t cheat on Madix. Doute wrote about the infamous season 3 confrontation.

“I was sweating, my stomach in knots, so I slammed an entire bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in the hour we were there. I needed to be stress-free for the ultimate ambush that was about to go down,” she wrote. “I was waiting for his new girlfriend to jump in and tear his head off, but instead … she grabbed his arm and they bolted. They both left the restaurant in a sprint. … Not only did they not break up (they are still together now!) but I got fired from my job for causing a stir. Whatever. Suck a dick.”

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On Becoming Friends With Ariana

While it would take years, Doute and Madix eventually made amends. The James Mae CEO, however, still insists that the couple hooked up before Doute and Sandoval were officially over, which they deny. “When we broke up, he started dating someone else immediately — or, you know, maybe they were already secretly dating; they don’t ever have to cop to it, but I can theorize about it in my own book!!” she wrote. “And now I love them both.”

Doute also shed some light on her unexpected friendship with Madix, as Bravo viewers never saw the moment they put the past behind them onscreen.

“The two of them had to really recognize and trust that not only was I over him, but I was also over making their lives a living hell,” Doute wrote, noting she had to take her “ego” out of it and “humble” herself. “I made a choice to let everything go, because whether or not I thought those rumors about an illicit rendezvous or two behind my back had been true or not, it didn’t matter anymore. A girl can’t actually steal someone’s boyfriend. He made a free-willed choice to leave me, and a free-willed choice to be with her. I needed to let them be happy. … They needed to find their own path to forgive me.”

While Doute and Madix learned they actually had a lot in common after they let their walls down, Sandoval was more “cautious” to let her back in, according to the author. The two exes were eventually able to become friends after his father came to town and attended a birthday party with the group.

“They both gave me a hug, his dad wished me well, and we did a Jägerbomb together. It was like old times again. I finally felt like the long nightmare was over. I knew then that my ex was ready to move on and forgive me too,” she wrote. “And then I started to really like him, as a person, again. My anger had completely dissipated. … She speaks his love languages, and I speak his friend language. Now? I can just laugh at these things from afar. I can be happy for them, and I am so happy for them.”

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On Sex With James

Following her split from Sandoval, Doute started dating Kennedy. And according to Doute, the beginning of their relationship was hot and heavy in the best way. “It was almost like being in a high school relationship again. Sex all the time. No place was off-limits. No time was off-limits. We were running around like nymphomaniacs without a care in the world,” she wrote.

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On Toxic Relationship With James

Doute and Kennedy’s relationship bliss was short-lived, however. Looking back, she also believes she “glamorized” the highlights.

“He had less relationship baggage than an older guy, but no coping skills; when life’s problems arrived at his door, it was like I was his mom, not his equal. And I really did not want to turn into this guy’s mom,” she explained.

Doute wrote about discovering the DJ was unfaithful to her through his Uber receipt from a birthday party. “Passwords on iTunes are Steve Jobs’s gift that keeps on giving,” she wrote, noting that she erased Kennedy’s iPad for revenge after they called it quits. “See, Apple passwords are all connected. The passwords to your iTunes, your iCloud, and your iPhone tracker are exactly the same.”

Doute also wrote about an ex's toxic behavior. “He was jealous and possessive. He put me down in public and blamed me for all his problems,” she claimed. “Broken furniture, shattered picture frames and mirrors, doors slamming and holes punched in my walls. Once that line had been crossed, it was only a matter of time before he put his hands on me: shoving, pushing, and physical restraint. …  He took every insecurity I’d ever confided in him and shoved them down my throat.”

She concluded: “It was not my fault. I deserved better. And if you are in a situation like the one I’m describing, you deserve better too.”

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On Meddling in Schwartz and Katie’s Relationship

During season 5 of Vanderpump Rules, viewers watched Tom Schwartz and Katie Maloney's rocky road to the alter. On their joint bachelor/bachelorette party in New Orleans, Doute couldn’t look past the underlying tension regarding Schwartz’s past infidelity.

“If they weren’t going to talk about it, I was going to find a way to make them talk about it. I didn’t want them walking down the aisle without getting to the bottom of it. At the time, I thought this was my gift to them!” she wrote, noting she thought at the time that Schwartz and Maloney should communicate more like her and her then-boyfriend, Carter. “It was none of my business, but it had come from a place of love and concern. And maybe a little arrogance, because that honeymoon phase really hits you hard. You’d think I would’ve learned my lesson, but I did this more than once.”

Another example of Doute’s meddling was flying Cartwright’s mother to L.A. amid a fight with Taylor. “No, it’s not common to fly in a friend’s mom in an effort to break up a relationship, but I did because I thought I knew what was best for her,” she admitted. “I had a false idea of what a real relationship looked like. My head was still in the clouds, and it made me self-righteous.”

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On How Friends Help — or Hurt — Breakups

Doute wrote about the importance of being able to vent to friends about relationship struggles, but also noted that once you tell your girls about your man’s issues, you can never go back. And while again, she didn’t name names, Doute’s friendships with Maloney and Schroeder came to a halt as she struggled with Carter during seasons 7 and 8 of the Bravo show.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat with my friends after fights with their boyfriends,” she wrote, referencing the time Schwartz poured a drink on Maloney’s head and Cartwright forgiving Taylor for cheating. “But for some reason, my venting had an expiration date. And they ditched me because my love life wasn’t picture-perfect.”

Doute then detailed one of her unnamed gal pals expressing concern about Carter still being part of her life, largely due to their dogs.

“She said she ‘liked’ my ex but thought it was best for me not to see him. Are you f—king kidding me? What did she want me to do, tie the dogs up with a leash to the front porch so he didn’t enter my house when he came to get them?” she wrote. “My friend then proceeded to text the guy I was recently talking to, asking him if he knew that I still talk to my ex and that he was over at my house. … In the texts, she kept repeating how much it bothered her that my ex was around and that if she wasn’t OK with it, this new guy shouldn’t be either. He told her he wasn’t bothered by it at all, and that I could handle myself. I couldn’t believe the audacity of my friend. I was livid.”

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On the Rise and Fall of Her Relationship With Carter

Doute and Carter dated for more than three years. While she wrote lovingly about their “honeymoon phase,” she revealed they “quickly digressed into the complacency phase.”

“We started fighting a lot, sometimes over money and sometimes over nothing at all. There was a period of time we were both just depressed, unhappy people wallowing in our own and each other’s paralyzing unhappiness,” she wrote. Doute explained that after she finally “ripped the Band-Aid off and broke up with him,” they continued to live together as she waited until her new house was move-in ready. “During that period, some of that time was spent apart; sometimes neither of us wanted to see each other or even speak to each other. But other times we spent time together as a family with our dogs — and yes, we would still sleep together. I was still attracted to him. I still had feelings for him. I still loved him.”

Doute concluded, however, that her relationship with Carter was her priority to a fault.

“I just wanted to stop fighting. It took such a toll on me that there were days I didn’t want to get out of bed. It was debilitating,” she wrote. “At the same time, we had outside people, friends of mine, making matters worse. They were very vocal in expressing their disappointment in me and him for not moving on. Had they never been through a breakup before? It’s not always cut and dry. I could have understood some impatience on their part, but they didn’t stop there. They found it OK to insult him, our relationship, and call me a liar.”