Lala Kent knows she isn’t on the best terms with most of her Vanderpump Rules costars — but she isn’t bothered.
“I’ve always said I like my circle to be small,” Kent, 34, noted on the Friday, December 6, episode of Scheana Shay‘s “Scheananigans” podcast. “And the smaller the better.”
Kent pointed out the perks of keeping her distance from people, adding, “I’d like to get it down [even more] because then I know there’s no liabilities. We’re all safe. I like quality over quantity. I’ve always been this way.”
The reality star also clapped back at trolls who say she has “no friends.”
“[That is] not an insult. It’s a fact and thank God. I have the people that I need,” Kent continued. “And if any one of them at some point don’t bring me peace or I feel I don’t wanna bring them peace, then I look forward to throwing gasoline on the bridge and lighting a fire. It’s like my favorite thing to do.”
Kent joined Vanderpump Rules in 2015 and had her fair share of rocky relationships with her costars. She found a more solid place in the friend group by the time season 11 rolled around earlier this year.
The season documented the aftermath of Tom Sandoval‘s affair with Rachel Leviss and split from Ariana Madix, and Kent initially sided with Madix, 39, in the drama. She changed her tune, however, over Madix not filming with Sandoval, 42.
“I was biting my tongue until a producer walks in and says, ‘Lala, everything you’ve been feeling outside of filming this show, the fourth wall that we’ve been [keeping] tight — break it,'” she recalled on the “Two Ts in a Pod” podcast in June. “I think I’d be lying if I said I gave no s—s this season, because I feel like what I was saying was just so clear as day. But no one else saw it that way.”
Kent subsequently came under fire on social media — and she issued an apology to the fans she may have offended — but that didn’t keep her from criticizing Madix.
“I want to be around women who work hard and have things that are really cool,” she explained. “I have constantly tried to be very supportive. Not tried — I wanted to be supportive. These are my friends. When Ariana started getting opportunities outside of Vanderpump Rules, that’s great for all of us.”
Kent continued: “The show reached a level that it never would have reached without this. And even though it was horrible, I was not mad at the opportunity she was getting outside of the show. What I started getting upset about is now we’re bringing a little bit of divaness to my place of work that I’ve been doing for eight years. And I have a hard time when people think that they are bigger than the show.”
The tension wasn’t resolved while Vanderpump Rules was put on hiatus. Bravo announced last month that season 12 of the reality hit will feature an entirely new cast, but Kent has no regrets about her final episodes.
“I’ve got my circle right where I want it to be. It’s not that I for some reason am forgetting all of the bad stuff that happened. I’m sure other people have not,” she shared on Shay’s podcast earlier this month. “But I don’t think I need to reach out to anybody. I’m happy in the space that I’m in.”
