Breaking her silence. Kristen Doute addressed her Vanderpump Rules firing after Faith Stowers called her and Stassi Schroeder out for racist remarks and name-calling.
“I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned is that I have so much to learn,” the Michigan native, 37, said during the new episode of the “Hollywood Raw” podcast with Dax Holt and Adam Glyn, which will be released on Wednesday, July 15. “I know that’s super cliché and a lot of people say that but it’s absolutely true because I think that I thought that I understood racism but now I’m really learning about unconscious bias. Learning about anti-racism. Learning about how we can do things locally to really truly make changes and putting work into your community locally to make those changes I think [are] so important.”
Us Weekly confirmed on June 9 that Doute was one of four Pump Rules stars who would not be returning to the series come season 9 due to their past racially insensitive remarks. Schroeder, 32, and newbies Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni were also cut from the reality show.
Earlier that month, Doute and Schroeder came under fire after Stowers, who appeared on season 4 of the series in 2016, claimed they had wrongfully called the police on her. Stowers recalled the incident during an Instagram Live on June 2, saying her former costars falsely reported her after the Daily Mail published a photo of a light-skinned African American woman with tattoos who was accused of robbing. At the time, Doute shared the photo on Twitter, writing, “Hey tweeties, doesn’t this ex #pumprules thief look familiar? I didn’t wanna go there but I’m going there.”
“It was definitely none of my business to take anything to social media [and] essentially send a mob out to this person. Especially because she’s black,” the He’s Making You Crazy author said on the podcast. “It was really just not my place to go there.”
After Stowers’ claims made headlines, Doute publicly apologized, as did Schroeder, who previously spoke about the incident on a 2018 episode of the “Bitch Bible” podcast. A source, however, told Us on June 8 that the ladies “didn’t reach out to Faith directly.”
“I’ve been taking some time to really process what I’ve been seeing, feeling and learning. And I need to address something specifically that happened a few years ago with my former castmate, Faith Stowers,” Doute wrote in an Instagram post on Sunday, June 7. “Although, my actions were not racially driven, I am now completely aware of how my privilege blinded me from the reality of law enforcement’s treatment of the black community, and how dangerous my actions could have been to her.”
She continued: “It was never my intention to add to the injustice and imbalance. I’m ashamed, embarrassed, and incredibly sorry. I will do better. I have to do better.”
Despite losing her job, Doute has taken the opportunity to reconnect with the Next Level Basic author after their friendship took a turn for the worse on season 8 of the Bravo series. “Stassi and Kristen are friends at this point,” a source told Us Weekly exclusively on July 10 after the former BFFs were spotted at lunch together in Los Angeles. “The two of them are going through this together and the experience has brought them closer together again.”
While the former reality star is hoping she can “repair her relationship” with Schroeder, who is expecting her first child with fiancé Beau Clark, she knows redeeming herself in the public eye won’t be easy.
“At the end of the day I’m not a f–king saint,” she said on the “Hollywood Raw” podcast. “I’m doing the best that I can. I’m human and I make mistakes all the time and I’m just trying to do something every day that makes this a little bit better for everyone.”
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