Vanderpump Rules shows the limits of making money on reality TV

Reality stars have always fallen in the lower ranks of onscreen talent. Despite their huge impact on pop culture, they’re not as well-compensated and generally respected as actors and even hosting personalities. This is especially noticeable on Bravo, where the network’s biggest names mainly exist in their own ecosystem of celebrity — or more accurately, Bravolebrity — which rarely ever translates to actual stardom. However, the seismic reality TV event known as Scandoval last year, where Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval was exposed for cheating on his longtime partner Ariana Madix with newer cast member Rachel Leviss, yielded a rare moment of financial prosperity and heightened visibility for the stars of the show, including a mention at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and two Emmy nominations. Naturally, Madix gained the most from the entire mess, nabbing endless sponcon deals, a slot on Dancing With the Stars, a role in the Broadway production of Chicago, and now a hosting gig on Peacock’s Love Island USA — on top of viewers’ sympathy. The scandal also served as marketing for her and her costar Katie Maloney’s sandwich shop Something About Her. Meanwhile, other cast members reaped benefits too: Lala Kent launched a successful merch line pegged to the ordeal. Scheana Shay saw a boost in her podcast streaming numbers and got to star in an Uber Eats commercial featuring her Bravo-famous song “Good as Gold.” And DJ James Kennedy became the de facto No. 1 guy in the group. Watching season 11, though, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s actually thriving. The show, which initially centered on a group of servers and bartenders working at Lisa Vanderpump’s gaudy West Hollywood restaurants, has always seen its cast struggle to make ends meet. In the afterglow of Scandoval, however, it’s particularly striking to hear several cast members mention how currently broke they are this season or how little money they had going into filming after more than a decade of being on the air. Accordingly, much of the cast’s plotting seems driven by a desperate need to keep the show — i.e., their main source of income — running. After 11 years in the public eye and a publicist’s wet dream of a scandal, the limits of gaining financial stability through the reality TV machine have never been more clear. This season was mostly about Madix and Sandoval, but also money [Image: Lala Kent, Scheana Shay, Tom Sandoval, and Tom Schwartz on the season 11 finale of Vanderpump Rules. https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25453474/NUP_202164_00729.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] This season of Vanderpump Rules has been burdened by one glaring (supposed) dilemma: How will Sandoval and Madix film together after his affair, to maintain a semblance of harmony amongst the cast? Despite the fact that the series’ large ensemble has always dealt with discord and separated itself into cliques, there seemed to be unsaid agreement — according to Shay, one that was enforced by producers — that Sandoval must be accepted back into the group in order for the show to go on. Thus, this season has seen some awkward attempts by cast members, specifically Shay and Kent, to force Madix to co-exist in group outings with her ex. This culminated in a memorable fourth-wall-breaking moment in the season finale when Madix refused to have an on-camera reconciliation with Sandoval. Kent ends the episode fulminating against Madix’s alleged diva behavior in refusing to comply with producers for the sake of their jobs. She also laments that Madix wasn’t being “real” in dismissing her ex, appearing to confuse what needed to occur in order to supposedly “preserve the show” with any real-life scenario where a woman was confronted with her conniving, trash-talking ex. Since the finale aired, Kent and Shay have endured backlash from fans’ for facilitating a redemption arc for Sandoval and ignoring Madix’s boundaries. Much of Kent and Shay’s gripes with Madix seem ridden with jealousy over her becoming a fan favorite. Yet, within the context of their feeble positions as reality stars, their odd maneuvers and bitter confessionals also feel like a display of economic panic. Reality stars, specifically those who join shows when they aren’t already famous, have long endured insultingly low pay. In an oversaturated reality landscape, one can imagine that negotiating a salary on one of multiple, ever-changing Bravo shows is a lot different than when popular, unscripted shows felt like monocultural events. (For example, the cast of Jersey Shore persuaded MTV to pay them $1 million for their second season.) This isn’t to say that the Vanderpump Rules cast are necessarily living in squalor. While Bravo keeps most of their salaries confidential, sources told the Hollywood Reporter in 2020 that the cast began earning $25,000 per episode during 2017, compared to the $10,000 they were paid for the entire first season. Nevertheless, these people are starting businesses and raising families in one of the most expensive cities in the country. Additionally, most of them didn’t come on the show with much. Vanderpump Rules has been an outlier in the more recent Bravospehere — aside from the Below Deck series — in centering on hourly workers from mostly middle-class backgrounds. This contrasts with Bravo’s “aspirational” programming, the Real Housewives franchise and Bravo’s other millennial enterprises, Summer House and Southern Charm, where the cast members join the show with preexisting wealth or high-paying jobs. Still, eleven seasons into one of Bravo’s most popular shows, which has granted them other money-making opportunities, it’s a bit startling to learn that the cast still isn’t financially comfortable. Early on in the season, Madix said that she only had $2,000 in her bank account before being showered with job opportunities. Even with her post-Scandoval gains, she’s argued against her costars’ claims that she’s rolling in dough. Meanwhile, Shay’s attempts to rekindle a friendship with Sandoval, despite his mistreatment of her best friend Madix, seem economically driven. (Besides the push to keep the show working, all her recollections of him being a “good friend” are monetary favors.) Ironically, Sandoval and his business partner Tom Schwartz, who have spent the past few seasons investing money for their two restaurants Tom Tom and Schwartz and Sandy’s, have complained about their low bank accounts and struggles to afford ideal housing after their breakups. During season nine, both Toms purchased $2 million farmhouses in San Fernando Valley with their then partners, Maloney and Madix. In the wake of their splits, it feels sadly poetic — their critics would say, karmic — that they’re now planning on shacking up together in their 40s, which is the exact same position they were in as broke 20-something-year-old models before the show even began. Reality stars aren’t as financially mobile as social media makes it seem All of this underscores a reality of reality TV, which is that exposure doesn’t necessarily allow participants to become economically mobile or even enjoy a comfortable life. A Bravolebrity can seemingly be the most beloved person on the internet, going viral every week on social media and spurring countless GIFs and memes — which has sparked its own debate about intellectual property — but that doesn’t always translate into dollars in their pocket. Even in the age of social media, where normal people are plucked from obscurity and launched into a world of fame and wealth from their living rooms, the combination of visibility and likeability is not an automatic portal to success. This is seemingly why most reality stars’ outside ventures seem largely limited to sponcon, live shows, podcasts and occasionally hosting, which isn’t to insult that work. It is all, however, work that hinges on their continued fame. It’s interesting how few Bravolebrities have been able to launch truly successful brands that go beyond their shows, and not for lack of trying. It’s become a trope on Real Housewives for cast members to use the platform to elevate or establish businesses no one really asked for, often overestimating their appeal as saleswomen. Across cities, you can see women hawking everything from multi-wick candles to fragrances, to custom hats to weave, all in the hopes of becoming the next Bravo girlboss. It’s a trend that kicked off with former Real Housewives of New York City star Bethenny Frankel, whose food and beverage company Skinnygirl became a multimillion-dollar success story. Summer House star Kyle Cooke also used the show to launch his hard tea company Loverboy, which made $16 million in sales in 2022. Vanderpump Rules’ Schwartz, Sandy, Madix, and Maloney have obviously all gone into brick-and-mortar, although the returns, so far, don’t appear to be that abundant. Working against this goal to make as much money as possible while on reality TV is the need to present a wealthy lifestyle. Likewise, Real Housewives, particularly the Georgians, often accuse one another of renting huge mansions or leasing luxury cars they can’t afford for the sake of “stunting.” Meanwhile, Bravo, as a company, has seemingly never been in a more secure, lucrative place. In recent years, Bravo’s annual three-day convention, BravoCon, has become a huge profit generator for the network, as it’s evolved into a brazen parade for advertisers. Additionally, season 10 of Vanderpump Rules, which unfolded during the reveal of Sandoval, has presumably handed the network even more advertising dollars, as the series became the most-watched cable show last year, including on streaming platforms. Still, the cast, aside from Madix, doesn’t appear to be reaping the benefits of Scandoval like one might have guessed watching them sell T-shirts and endorse Chili’s tequila espresso martinis on television. That frustration has simmered throughout the whole season and into the reunion. There’s an obvious argument here that the tertiary parties shouldn’t benefit at all. Plus, it’s been odd hearing Madix’s castmates claim that she’s “thriving” because she’s hawking Duracell batteries and competed on Dancing With the Stars despite the immense and traumatizing betrayal she experienced from Sandoval. For all the heavy drinking that’s occurred on this show, the cast has never exhibited so much thirst.