While there have been very few changes within the show’s core group of frenemies, several newcomers have come and gone from the Vanderpump Rules cast over the years.
Few lasted more than a season, which is not good, as they often represented attempts by producers to address the series’ diversity problem.
Even worse than their short-lived tenures on Vanderpump are the reasons these women gave for leaving the show.
Billie Lee, a trans woman, said she was harassed and mistreated by other cast members.
Now, Faith Stowers, the only black person to ever star on the show, is offering a similar account of her time on set.
Faith went on to appear on MTV’s Ex on the Beach and The Challenge following her time on Vanderpump, but it seems her interactions with the other SUR staffers nearly soured her on reality TV for good.
As The Ashley’s Reality Roundup reports, Faith was interviewed by Floribama Shore star Candace Renee Rice earlier this week, and she had some surprising things to say about the ways in which she was mistreated by her co-stars.
Stowers says the harassment she endured had little to do with the fact that she slept with Jax Taylor when he was already dating Brittany Cartwright, and much to do with the color of her skin.
“I was the only black person [on the cast] … it was a lot,” Stowers said at one point.
“It hit the ceiling for me … when Kristen and Stassi decided they were gonna call the cops on me,” she added.
Yes, as we reported at the time, Kristen Doute and Stassi Schroeder bizarrely accused Stowers of drugging and robbing people throughout Los Angeles back in 2018.
The former friends even went so far as to call the police and inform them that an “at-large” African American woman was on a crime spree in their neighborhood.
It was a bizarre situation that led to Stowers threatening a lawsuit against Stassi and Kristen at one point.
The matter never landed anyone in civil or criminal court, but it’s up there with the Rand-50 Cent feud on the list of insane real-life incidents involving the Vanderpump cast that were somehow never discussed on the show.
An investigation turned up no evidence against Stowers, who believes the allegation was a result of her castmates’ personal vendetta against her.
“Once I [quit], I felt like they got upset with me,” Faith said in what might be the understatement of the year.
Faith says she was also treated like an outsider by the woman who was briefly her boss, Lisa Vanderpump.
“When she first approached me she was very, you know, happy about the fact that, you know, there was a black person that was going to be on the show and she was like, ‘I want you to put them in their place and kind of give them this NeNe Leakes kind of attitude,’ … and I was very nice coming in,” Stowers said.
“I wasn’t really giving nobody real attitude and giving her that show she needed.”
Faith was provided little opportunity to deliver the "NeNe Leakes attitude" Lisa was looking for, as she was never permitted to film a confessional segment.
“In my opinion, I thought it was weird that everybody on that show got to do interviews and confessionals and I didn’t get a chance to do that, to tell my story, which was a very interesting story, being a black woman in the military,” she said.
“At the time I was still in the Army … I was leaving military drill like, real, real jobs to come film with y’all and act up.”
All of this comes on the heels of a season in which cast members were repeatedly accused of cultural insensitivity.
Tuesday’s reunion show found Max Boyens apologizing for racist remarks he’d made in the past, but that was far from the only incident that marred what was already a lackluster season of television.
The use of fake cops for a prank seems even more tone deaf in light of recent events, and a long history of homophobia and other forms of bigotry has fans calling for Jax Taylor to be fired from the show.
The reunion also featured newcomer Charli Burnett accusing Jax of bullying her without cause or provocation.
Such allegations directed at Taylor are hardly surprising at this point.
However, Burnett’s claims were unsettling at the time, and they’re made all the more upsetting by this latest reminder that the Vanderpump stars are in the habit of harassing new cast members until they quit.
Fortunately, things eventually worked out for Faith, who recently welcomed her first child.
But if Vanderpump producers don’t do something to address the show’s ongoing issues with political correctness, the series might not have such a happy ending.
