An unexpected opportunity! Lisa Vanderpump is no stranger to the world of reality TV, but her new E! show, Overserved, wasn’t part of her original plan.
The Vanderpump Rules personality, 60, shared some inside secrets about the series — which features her hosting dinner parties for celebs at her L.A. home Villa Rosa — ahead of its premiere on Thursday, March 18, telling Us Weekly exclusively that the gig fell into her lap “after nine months of being literally in solitary confinement” during the COVID-19 crisis.
“I felt that I wanted to really try to maintain the standard [at home] … so I was literally cooking, cleaning, washing, online shopping for food. I’m trying to do as much as I could to make it a pleasant experience,” the Bravo star said, joking that keeping her home in order was “a full-time job.”
Amid the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, Vanderpump and her husband, Ken Todd, were forced to shut down their popular L.A. restaurants. Though it felt as though everything “changed overnight” at the start of lockdown in March 2020, producers approached the U.K. native with a unique opportunity.
“They said to me, ‘If we gave you a camera, what would you do?'” the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum told Us. “I said, ‘Well, I’ve been cooking up a storm with [my daughter] Pandora, making really beautiful things and really experimenting.’ And we love setting the table … and they said, ‘Let’s make a show about it.'”
Each episode of Overserved shows Vanderpump hosting a new set of famous guests at her California estate for homemade food and cocktails — and totally unfiltered conversation. “People came to play,” the Simply Divine author said, teasing appearances by BFF Lance Bass and Vivica A. Fox, who passed “very, very tight restrictions” by a “COVID officer” before filming.
“We did it all ourselves,” Vanderpump said of the elaborate dinner parties. “Everything was homegrown. … I wanted to make a show that was the most gorgeous show that you would stop, you would press the remote and go back, [like], ‘I want to see what that is again.'”
Working in the kitchen with Pandora, 34, was another added bonus. “A chip off the old block!” the Dancing With the Stars alum gushed over her daughter, whose eye for entertaining came in handy on set.
While viewers can expect to see plenty of shenanigans go down in Vanderpump’s backyard, some stars played it safe. “We did have sober people here as well,” she explained. “It was really about having a good time and I think because people have been locked up so long [in the pandemic], they really enjoyed the whole experience.”
Overserved With Lisa Vanderpump premieres on E! Thursday, March 18, at 9 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
