Lisa Vanderpump on Assembling ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Reboot and Why Skeptical Viewers Should “Expect Something Different”

Lisa Vanderpump is ready for the Bravo audience to raise their glasses high to a brand new era of Vanderpump Rules. 

After 11 seasons on air, three Emmy nominations and a cheating scandal that broke the internet (and, subsequently, its cast apart), the network revealed its plans to reboot the longstanding reality television delicacy. Now, a little over a year after the announcement, Vanderpump is ushering in a slate of fresh faces to lead the show, which centers on employees from her West Hollywood restaurant, SUR.

Well, not all of the cast is made up of active SURvers or bartenders, but more on that later. 

Season 12 of Vanderpump Rules arrives on Bravo on Tuesday, taking over the reins from some of the most popular and polarizing reality TV personalities the genre has ever seen. The fresh cast has big shoes to fill, and the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star isn’t shy in agreeing that her cast may not be keen on the natural expectation the audience has of them. 

“No. How can they be?” Vanderpump tells The Hollywood Reporter when asked if the season 12 cast is prepared for the pressure and expectation that comes with being named the new faces of Vanderpump Rules. “It’s like a whole new world for them.”

To commemorate the new era, THR chatted with the Vanderpump Rules boss at SUR (where else?) ahead of season 12’s debut. Below, Vanderpump dishes on how she put together the new cast, if she thinks they took their jobs at the restaurant for a chance at reality TV stardom, what changes she pondered about implementing with the reboot and what she’d ask of skeptical fans as they tune in Tuesday night. 

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How are you feeling about ushering in the new era of Vanderpump Rules?

It feels great, really. But it’s almost just like the cameras have started rolling, because most of them worked here before. So it’s almost like we stopped the cameras [after season 11,] now we’re starting them again. It’s just got a totally different feeling, because also, with the others, they were older now, there were more serious problems. It was fractured; some didn’t want to film with each other — it wasn’t the show that we started with. I mean, it was a great, what was it, 11 years? But now it was a chance to go back to the restaurant and do it differently. Start afresh.

Is this new cast ready for the pressure and the expectation that fans have of them?

No. How can they be? It’s like a whole new world for them. But, you know, they have to maintain their job here. And they do, if they want to be on the show, this is where the show is based. So I’ll always be here to support them. And they’re a strong group. I mean, they do get it wrong sometimes — you’re going to see it in the show — but they’re a strong group. There’s a lot of cohesion there, so they’ll probably get support from each other. Then, equally, it gets a little fractious. But it’s like when you work in a restaurant and you’re working together every day and you’re out at night, because you don’t want to just go home and go to bed, that’s always been the way, they always party afterwards. You know, there’s life there. There’s a connection there, and things happen, and it’s documenting what they get up to. They’re [a] pretty fast bunch.

When you decided to reboot the show, did you know that each of these people would be a part of the cast? Did you already have the cast conceptualized? 

A couple were [added] later to the game before we started filming. But essentially, I like to work on a group that has cohesion and authenticity, so Marcus and Kim and Demy, they’d worked here, Venus [as well], for years. I mean, I’m not going back to the OGs, but [they were working here] definitely for a few years. So there was already comfortability at the restaurant, and then a couple of people were added as we started looking. But yeah, they were all service. They’re all ready to go. And I have hundreds of people working for me, so sometimes you can move people from restaurants. Like we [how] took Scheana and Tom Sandoval, they used to work at Villa Blanca in the old days. But with this group, no, they were here and they were doing it.

Chris and Jason have past reality TV experience. People are skeptical about that already. Why did you bring them into this group? 

They wanted to be here, I suppose, because they’d heard about SUR, but they didn’t know that we were definitely going to be doing the show. Listen, a lot of these people want to work as waiters, and if you were going to work anywhere in Hollywood where there’s a chance it might be a television show, wouldn’t you choose that place? I mean, let’s be honest about it. I’m sure they were hoping I’d pick it up. And then I was like, “Yeah, we’re doing it. Are you doing it with us?”

Do you think that’s why some of the people who are working at SUR potentially wanted to work here?

They waited a long time. I mean, they’ve been here for years. I mean, Marcus, Kim, Venus, Demy — they’ve been here for a long time. So, no, I think they enjoy working here. They’re part of the SUR family, and even if we weren’t doing the show, we didn’t know that we’d reboot it. We didn’t know we’d bring it back here.

What about Shayne? He’s not working at the restaurant. Why is he on the show?

Well, because he was Marcus’ best friend, and he was always on the other side of the bar. He just became part of the SUR equation. He’s got a very interesting personal story. He was very vibrant. He was always with them socially, because a lot of this is also about their life outside of the restaurant once they leave, and Shayne was very much a part of that. He’s an incredible young man that’s been through so much. I think the most interesting thing about this season is the fact that a lot of these people have very strong personal stories as well, which we get to see, and his is one of them. 

Who do you think should be the most worried about the show coming out?

All of them aren’t gonna like all of it. That’s what I just told them, I said, “You’re gonna look at it like a pack of photographs.” You’re gonna go, “I don’t like that, oh I like that,” because that’s a reality, and it’s our job to tell the truth. It’s our job to document the truth, and not everybody is going to be happy with everything.

Who surprised you the most when they got on camera?

There were a few of them. I don’t know whether that is just because the world has moved on and reality television is so much more prevalent. Remember, when I started doing reality television, I knew my friend Sharon Osbourne in it — there really wasn’t much else. But now, I think with people with iPhones and documenting stuff on social media — there was no social media when I started Vanderpump Rules. There was no Instagram, there was none of that. Twitter just started, so I think people are a lot more savvy with cameras and being around that, taking selfies and creating videos is a very different feeling now. This is Gen Z, and they are very different to what we saw 12 years ago.

I spoke with Alex Baskin at the end of The Valley season two, and that’s one thing he said: This is the Gen Z Vanderpump Rules. What else is going to be different about season 12 from the OGs?

People are very honest with their feelings, in a way [that] they want to get it all out there. That’s what Gen Z is about. “I want to tell my personal story. I want to tell you why I feel and how I feel it.” And I’m like, “Can we get back to work please?” It’s like, “I’m gonna go to the back alley and I’m going to tell them why I’m feeling like that.” So it definitely has that flavor. But the relaxed atmosphere of cameras, I think, was much easier for this group of people than it was for the first group, because the world has changed. They’re used to seeing themselves on camera, albeit on social media. Very, very different feeling.

When you did decide to reboot the show, did you ever think about changing the opening title song? 

We did. And that was one of my notes: We got to do it, we got to do it different, we got to do it fresher. Our titles have always been iconic, and then we listen to other soundtracks, and nothing had that same emotional content. And I feel as you saw the trailer and then the walk back, and then suddenly the music comes on, it’s like a tide flows. It pulls back, and then it takes you with it, and it gave me goose bumps when I saw that laid on it, and I thought, We can’t replace it. It’s still there. It would almost be like calling it Vanderpump Rules and doing it in a different restaurant. This is the heart of it, and I felt that it wouldn’t have that same kind of magic. Of course, some things were different and it feels fresher. But no, I think we needed it. I initially thought we didn’t, but emotionally, I felt much more connected to it.

Did you contemplate changing the name of the show? 

Oh no, I wouldn’t have changed that. I thought of changing it, having me walk through the doors on a zimmer frame and calling it Vanderpump Drools, since I’m getting so much older. But I thought nobody would watch that (laughs). 

Who from the original cast has been the most supportive of the reboot? 

[Tom] Schwartz, Lala [Kent.]

No one else? I know you work with Stassi [Schroeder] a lot.

Oh, Stassi has. But Stassi hasn’t been on the show for years. I work with her on Vanderpump Villa, she says, “I can’t wait to watch it.” I think those three have [been the most supportive.] It’s sad to me when I hear things like Brittany [Cartwright] saying, oh, you know, I don’t call her. She’s right, I don’t. As I say, I have multiple businesses. I’m always traveling. I’ve been through a lot personally over the last few years, and I’m always kind of moving forward, but I’m always there for them. That’s a shame to me and it felt weird to me. The fact that she greeted me [at BravoCon], and I was like, “Brittany, hi!” And then I heard she said that, but I guess she said that before she greeted me (laughs), because as I greeted her, she [said,] “How are you?” And then I heard she said that. If I had I heard she said that, I would have said, “What the fuck? You know I’m always here for you,” you know.

What would you ask of skeptical fans as they watch the new show?

To go in not expecting to see what we’ve done before. I think what we did before, we did really well. It was very accurate, it was authentic. I think time has changed. The world has changed. I think people are different to how they were 12 years ago. Essentially, they’re trying to make their way in a complicated world where SUR is always a stepping stone. Maybe Demy’s one of the only people that’s like, I’m here as a manager, and she takes the kind of job, maybe, with longevity in her future. But most people, it’s a stepping stone, and they’re navigating through their life in Hollywood, and it’s a group of friends that are very closely connected, sometimes [more] closely connected than I would like, but shit happens. Expect something different. 

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New episodes of season 12 of Vanderpump Rules release Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on Bravo, and stream the next day on Peacock.