Lala Kent opened up about how Jax Taylor, Stassi Schroeder and Brittany Cartwright put their drama on the back burner to support her sobriety.
During an Amazon Live, which streamed on Tuesday, October 24, Kent, 33, answered a fan question about whether it was “awkward” between Taylor, 44, Schroeder, 35, and Cartwright, 34, at her get together.
“I was in my own zone of just thinking, ‘My gosh, I can’t believe I’ve been sober for five years,'” Kent said about her celebration on Sunday, October 22, at Chili’s, which several Vanderpump Rules stars attended. “And I was so grateful.”
Kent considered the current rift between Taylor, Schroeder and Cartwright — but luckily, it wasn’t an issue.
“I won’t say that I didn’t think about it. I’m always thinking about people feeling comfortable,” she continued. “My five-year sobriety birthday is not an episode of Vanderpump Rules. I want everyone to feel comfortable. There’s no content here.”
According to Kent, her former costars put her feelings first. “It was crazy to see people come to support me even though they may have felt uncomfortable around certain people,” she concluded. “And that’s how I know that I have a very beautiful and incredible friend group. Like, I thought that was just amazing for everybody to be like, ‘Don’t care, we are going to support her.'”
The Vanderpump Rules costars have attended each other’s big events and celebrations even after their respective exits in 2020. Schroeder and Taylor were original cast members since the Bravo show debuted in 2013. After their relationship — which was a central story line in the early seasons — came to an end, the pair kept their distance but ultimately were able to reconnect as friends.
Schroeder has since moved on with now-husband Beau Clark, with whom she shares daughter Hartford, 2, and son Messer, 1 month. Taylor, meanwhile, found love with Cartwright, whom he married in 2019. They share son Cruz, 2.
The former SUR coworkers sparked rumors of a feud in 2022 after Taylor and Cartwright weren’t in attendance at Schroeder’s nuptials.
Schroeder addressed the suspected falling out that same month, saying on her “The Good the Bad the Baby” podcast, “To our faces, they are telling us that they are coming, but behind our back, the dude is texting Beau’s best friend that they’re not. Good friends don’t do that. They don’t talk s—t about your wedding behind your back or pretend that they’re coming and give a list of reasons why they’re not coming to other people. Friends don’t do that to each other.”
She continued: “Two weeks before the wedding, right before I left for the book tour, I was like, ‘We need to address this with them because I’m not playing this game.’ I ordered all the stuff we needed to have in terms of seat assignments and the place cards. That’s done. So I need to know if I need to quickly ask to get things rearranged. Because it’s not just, like, taking out two people.”
Cartwright, however, argued that she and Taylor tried to make it to Schroeder’s special day.
“We had actual reasons why we couldn’t go that were not talked about. Like, Cruz’s passport didn’t come in, my mom had a death in the family and had to go home,” she explained on the “Betches Moms” podcast in June 2022, shutting down claims that she and her husband waited until “the last minute” to cancel. “That was not the case. It was that I was literally trying to be there, up until the very last minute.”
Schroeder has maintained that she’s not looking to mend their issues just yet.
“I do miss them at times. They hurt me — they really did. It feels like I can’t trust them anymore,” she said while cohosting a June episode of “The Toast” podcast. “I am over it, but it doesn’t mean I have to go be besties with these people again.”
Taylor weighed in on the drama earlier this month when he admitted to missing their dynamic.
“I wish I was good friends with Stassi and Beau still. I’m trying. Obviously, we didn’t go to their wedding, and they are still kind of holding that over our heads,” he shared on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. “It hurts my feelings because I love them to death, and I wish we could be friends again. I love them both dearly, but they just took it to heart that we didn’t go to their wedding.”
