The Valley Season 2 premiere made it clear that there's not much estranged spouses Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright see eye to eye on these days. One hot topic that's still up for debate: How close were Jax and Julian, aka his friend that Brittany dated following their separation?
Jax claimed on the April 15 episode that he and Julian were good friends and had been "hanging out all the time," something Brittany refuted in the above The Valley After Show clip. "They did hang out sometimes, but, like, it was always more group stuff," she insisted. "They were not like BFFs... It was not like a Tom Schwartz situation."
Jax's response? "That's a complete lie," he fired back, arguing that Julian's daughter called him "Uncle Jax," they went to basketball games together, and he'd even helped him sign with his manager.
"He was over at my house all the time. [When] he was always having problems, I would go out and hang out with him," Jax said of Julian. "How much more of a friend… I mean, what do you call that?"
Are Jax Taylor and Julian still friends today?
When an After Show producer asked Jax if he’d talked to Julian after he discovered his and Brittany's "sexy" text messages, he replied, "No, I want nothing to do with that guy."
Even so, the Jax's Studio City owner took some responsibility for what happened: "I can sit there and be mad at Brittany. I can sit there and be mad at Julian. But the reason why she did this is because I pushed her away."
Jax continued, "I still have a hard time trying to figure out who to blame in that situation. And then I came to, when I went to therapy, the person I need to blame is myself."
The Valley cast weighs in on Jax Taylor and Julian's friendship
According to Brittany, Vanderpump Rules' Lala Kent first introduced Julian to the group about three-and-a-half years ago. Sitting beside her, Lala added, "I would say that he and Jax were close, but it was like a group thing. I feel like I never saw just Jax and Julian."
Zack Wickham further revealed that Julian was also connected to The Valley cast because he worked at TomTom as a security guard and would attend "big events," but insisted he "did not hang out with Jax on the regular."
As Danny Booko put it, "I know that they were friends," but he cautioned that Jax "takes what's little and amplifies it to the nth degree of how big he can make it."
Kristen Doute agreed, adding, "We're not talking about Brittany hooking up with Tom Schwartz. But, for Jax, it's very convenient to say so because . . . he's just trying to make Brittany look bad."
Meanwhile, Jesse Lally shared that for what it's worth, Julian "was one of 22 people" on his and Jax's boys’ chat "that's like religion to us."
Added Schwartz, "Without a doubt, Jax was closer to Julian than anybody else. Does it justify the way he reacted? F–k no."
