A decade into its run, when most reality TV series have either died an ignoble death or are simply awaiting the axe of cancellation, Bravo’s Vanderpump Rules stumbled upon a late-career renaissance.
When TMZ broke the news that the show’s leading lad, Tom Sandoval, was carrying on an affair with the best friend of his live-in girlfriend, Ariana Madix, of nine years, her heart may have been broken, but a star was born. Blindsided by TMZ’s bombshell, which broke midway through the show’s 10th season, Bravo retroactively edited the second half of the episodes to foreshadow the “Scandoval,” culminating with more than 10 million viewers and rendering VPR the highest-rated broadcast in the network’s history. Madix, who became America’s sweetheart overnight, forayed the betrayal into brand sponsorships worth a reported $1 million, a record-setting gig starring in Chicago on Broadway, hosting Love Island, and publishing a New York Times-bestselling cocktail book.
Yet, just a few months after another ratings juggernaut of a VPR season came to a close, Bravo has announced that it is effectively ending the show as we know it, firing the entire cast and replacing them with a brand new crop of 20-something-year-olds for season 12.
What the hell happened? In the case of this reality TV series, social media and the cottage industry of “influencer”-hosted podsphere simply made the show too real for TV.
The original VPR began with the cast working as servers at a glitzy West Hollywood lounge owned by the eponymous Lisa Vanderpump, herself formerly of the Real Housewives fame. Even when the cast backstabbed, slept with, and cheated on one other, the fact that they actually had to work shifts for Vanderpump forced these wannabe actors and models to eventually break bread and create dynamite TV.
However, 10 years later, the cast has graduated to bonafide B-list celebrity status, multimillion-dollar homes in Beverly Hills, and a separate income stream on social media. While the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times magazine breathlessly investigated “Scandoval,” cast members Lala Kent and Scheana Shay broke the news in real-time on their own podcasts, sometimes spoiling the show months before airing. Petrified that Bravo would kill the program if Madix did not reconcile on-air with Sandoval, Kent and company tried to force confrontations between the exes on camera.
In a dangerous gamble that viewers wanted a showdown between Madix and Sandoval more than a season-long smackdown of the cheating cad, the VPR stars were visibly producing the show in real-time. They concluded the 11th season finale by lambasting a distraught and disturbed Madix for leaving a party to avoid being accosted by Sandoval.
“The world rallied around her, and she now thinks she’s Beyonce — it’s bulls*** that she can’t film with someone that she stays under the same roof [with],” ranted Kent to the crew, sans Madix. “I get it, he f***ing cheated … But he did not kill somebody!”
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Alas, millions of VPR fans were not so sanguine. Unilaterally backing Madix, the VPR audience review-bombed Kent’s podcast, drove Sandoval’s Los Angeles restaurant to financial ruin, and pledged to boycott the show if Sandoval and his defenders returned for another season.
Madix no longer financially needs the show, and the viewers no longer want Sandoval and his sidekicks on their screens. How do you film a show about a bunch of people who hate each other when they no longer rely on shifts behind the bar at Vanderpump’s happy hours? The answer, according to Bravo, is that you simply don’t. A word of advice for the next generation of VPR stars: perhaps stay off social media, leave the producing to producers, and whatever you do, don’t drain the content on-screen to your podcasts prematurely.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
