Lala Kent and Stassi Schroeder looked back on the times they’ve been cheated on during a recent episode of Stassi’s podcast, comparing their cheating scandals to that of Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval.
Months after Sandoval was caught in a months-long affair with his and Ariana’s close friend and Vanderpump Rules co-star, Raquel Leviss, Lala suggested that Ariana, who has profited exponentially from her former boyfriend’s cheating, was the “perfect victim” as she recalled many feeling that she “deserved” to be cheated on by ex-fiance Randall Emmett.
“People looked at me like I deserved it,” Lala shared on the July 19 episode of Straight Up With Stassi, via Bye Wig, Hello Drama on Instagram. “They look at me like, ‘Well you wrecked a home,’ and whether that’s true or not, like, I’m done explaining how that happened. If people wanna believe that, that’s fine. But I am looked at as the girl who like, deserves certain things because I’m very vocal. People have seen me for many years go off and so it’s looked at as like, ‘Well this was just humbling for you. You needed this.’”
Meanwhile, Stassi, who was cheated on by ex-boyfriend Jax Taylor on numerous occasions, said she can relate.
“I completely understand this because just like in the first few seasons of Vanderpump Rules when Jax cheated, then when Jax cheated with [Kristen Doute], and all of those little times, people were just like, ‘Well you’re such a b-tch, of course, you deserved it,’” Stassi revealed.
Lala then looked back on a spotlight the L.A. Times did with her in which they spoke to a professor at Columbia, who said that when scandals happen, the woman has to be the “perfect victim.”
“When something like this happens, you have to be the perfect victim in it. You have to be neutral at all times. You can’t really have a past because if you have those things, you’re looked as someone who deserved it and even though it’s not fair and it doesn’t make any sense, that’s just the way it is,” Lala stated.
Lala’s comments came after Stassi mentioned Ariana and the way in which the world responded to Sandoval’s affair, noting that not everyone gets such a reaction.
“You see somebody like Ariana who gets cheated on and the whole world just like, falls to her feet and it’s like, ‘Wait, hold on. A lot of us have been cheated on but we deserved it because we’re tougher?’” Stassi asked, signaling to the double standard. “It’s just so weird to watch that people react to different women being cheated on so differently.”
“I know. It’s gross,” Lala agreed.
Vanderpump Rules season 11 is expected to begin airing on Bravo sometime later this year or early next year.