Lisa Vanderpump isn’t ready to forgive Kyle Richards — but still feels for her former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills costar amid her marriage woes with husband Mauricio Umansky.
“With Kyle and Mauricio I mean, I don’t have a great relationship with her, I’ve been honest about that,” Lisa, 63, exclusively told Us Weekly while attending BravoCon on Friday, November 3. “When somebody calls you a liar, it’s hard to come back from that when they don’t take it back. But I have empathy. Empathy for it. They’ve got a family and beautiful girls.”
While Lisa and Kyle, 54, were instant pals during the first season of RHOBH in 2010, their nearly decade-long friendship came to a grinding halt in 2018 after their costar Dorit Kemsley adopted a puppy from Kylie’s dog rescue center, Vanderpump Dogs. After the pet wound up at a killer shelter, Teddi Mellencamp accused Lisa of encouraging her employees to talk about the situation so it would be a storyline on the show.
While Kyle attempted to stay neutral in the feud, she questioned Lisa when the story leaked to the press — upsetting the Vanderpump Rules star. The women ended up in hearted a argument, with Lisa’s husband, Ken Todd, kicking Kyle out of the house and causing Lisa to cease communication with her costars, including Kyle, before officially exiting the Bravo series during season 9.
After their fallout, Kyle exclusively told Us that she had attempted to contact her former friend with no success. “Emails and text messages and, you know, I don’t know what else to do,” she told Us in November 2018. “As far as I’m concerned, the ball is in her court.”
The twosome seemingly haven’t made amends, but Lisa’s “empathy” comes amid a different kind of relationship drama for Kyle. Us confirmed in July that Kyle and Mauricio, 54, had separated after 27 years of marriage. The couple tied the knot in 1996 and share daughters Alexia, 27, Sophia, 23, and Portia, 15. (Mauricio is also the stepfather of Kyle’s daughter Farrah, 34, whom she welcomed with ex-husband Guraish Aldjufrie.)
Kyle and Mauricio shared a joint statement about their separation in July, noting that they had a “rough year” in their marriage but had no plans to divorce. “We both love and respect each other tremendously,” they wrote via Instagram. “There has been no wrongdoing on anyone’s part.”
Tension between the two grew, however, when photos surfaced of Mauricio holding hands with his Dancing With the Stars partner, Emma Slater, last month. Kyle expressed her discomfort with the images during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live, telling host Andy Cohen, “I don’t know if anything’s happened yet, but obviously there’s something there. … I love him very much and we are amicable. [But] that really did hurt me.”
Mauricio, for his part, addressed the romance rumors head-on in an October Instagram video with Slater, 34, insisting that the duo are “not dating.”
Kyle and Mauricio are not the only RHOBH who appear to be “having issues” in their marriage. In October, In Touch reported that Dorit, 47, and her husband, PK Kemsley, are living “separate lives.” The couple — who share daughter Jagger, 9, and son Phoenix, 7 — responded to the reports at the time, denying that they plan to end their marriage.
At the time, Dorit and PK, 56, added that they’ve had “some challenging years,” and will discuss their relationship on season 13 of RHOBH, which kicked off in October.
Meanwhile, a source exclusively told Us earlier this month that Dorit and PK are “spending time apart” while undergoing “couples counseling.”
“They both agree it’s the right thing to do,” a second insider told Us. “It’s been a rough period for them. They want to say on amicable terms whether they stay together or not.”
While speaking with Us at BravoCon on Friday, Lisa shared that she doesn’t believe Dorit and PK are really in trouble, adding that she doesn’t “invest too much in rumors.”
“I haven’t heard much about that, and I don’t ever really believe rumors because I think all marriages go through a little bit of that,” she explained. “I’ve had been married 41 years, sometimes I’ve wanted to kill Ken and often [I’ve] kind of [been] honest about it. They go, ‘Oh, what’s it like being married?’ It’s f—king difficult! It is.”
