Lala Kent is speaking out about Rachel Leviss‘ recent interview with Bethenny Frankel.
During a new episode of her podcast Give Them Lala released on Wednesday (August 23), the 32-year-old reality star addressed several of the claims made by her former Vanderpump Rules co-star, as well as her decision not to return to the show.
In her interview with Bethenny, Rachel – who previously went by the nickname Raquel – discussed her affair with Tom Sandoval and alleged that she had been exploited by Bravo in their attempts to profit off the scandal.
Keep reading to find out what Lala said about the podcast…
“It is a travesty that she didn’t end up coming back. Because — I’m not going to say too much because we’re in production — she should have come back. I think she would have been very surprised,” Lala said. “And instead, she went and did this [podcast with Bethenny], and she was manipulated yet again.”
She then went through several of Rachel‘s points one by one, calling them “blatant lies.”
“There were things that she was then saying that were not perspective,” she said. “It was … a flat-out lie, and I can’t imagine that you believe what you are saying.”
Lala specifically singled out Rachel‘s claim that Lala, Katie Maloney and Kristina Kelly referred to her as “reality TV ratings gold” during their girls trip to Vegas.
“That never happened,” she said. “Raquel that night after she said, ‘[It's a] good thing you don’t have a man,’ went to her bedroom, went to sleep. The next morning when you guys see her come into our room and she sits down and feels embarrassed, that was the first time we had seen her.”
“There was no we came into her room and told her she was ‘reality TV ratings gold.’ This never happened, and this is not perspective. This is fact. No one every said this to you. Ever.”
Lala also accused Bethenny of “exploit[ing]” and “manipulat[ing]” Rachel by having her appear on the podcast.
“I saw this all the time that there are going to be moments where our voice is all we have. We have all been able to go on a platform – whether it is our own or someone else’s – to share our side of any story,” Lala said. “Raquel absolutely has that right, and I am happy that she finally got to take advantage of a giant platform to tell her story. I only saw clips and what I gathered from it is Bethenny completely exploited that girl yet again.”
She continued, “To me, she sat there and said, ‘You know what? This girl is going to be easy to manipulate… Her story is crazy even though she brought it upon herself and this is going to be the perfect way for me to place her into the narrative I’m trying to create.’ It was actually really sad to me because I really liked Bethenny Frankel.”
She also noted that reality TV isn’t for everybody, adding that “if you are not mentally tough as f–k, it can break you. It definitely can.”
“Now to say that Raquel was a victim of something, I don’t know,” she added. “What I do know is you made a choice to sleep with your best friend’s – she says they weren’t that close – your best friend’s partner of 10 years. You didn’t have to do that. No one was forcing you to do it and no one asked you to do it. I felt like Bethenny was really trying to push her in a certain direction.”
Another VPR cast member recently reacted to Rachel‘s appearance on Bethenny‘s podcast and you can find out what they said here.