Getty"This is in no way, shape or form her fault at all. She should not be getting any kind of flack for this whatsoever," says Taylor of his estranged wife after he revealed he'd been struggling with a decades-long cocaine addiction.
Jax Taylor knows how much his struggles with addiction have cost him both personally and professionally, and he also knows who's to blame for it.
Talking on the premiere episode of his Inside the Mind of a Man podcast, Taylor made it clear that he doesn't blame his estranged wife Brittany Cartwright for any of this ... and neither should anyone else.
The Vanderpump Rules alum, who now stars on spinoff The Valley, said that Brittany was first and foremost on his mind as he made the decision to come clean publicly about his decades-long cocaine addiction.
Leave Brittany Alone
"When I was doing that, I wanted to make sure that I was very delicate," he explained. "She has gone through the most out of all of this. And I know people are going to reach out to her and possibly applaud her. But there’s the people that don’t and say, ‘Why didn’t you try to get him help sooner?'"
It was this thought that he was pushing back against, as noted by E! News, arguing, "This is in no way, shape or form her fault at all. She should not be getting any kind of flack for this whatsoever."
While acknowledging that Brittany was aware of his struggles with addiction, Jax noted that it still must have been "very hurtful" for her to see him open up publicly for the first time about it.
Jax went on to emphasize that Brittany is an amazing mother and person and that their breakup can't be laid at her feet, either. Jax and Brittany share three-year-old son Cruz.
"She's a human being and she was pushed. She was pushed to her limits and I don't blame her," Jax explained.
He also made it clear that "there was other things that went on [in the] relationship too, that had nothing to do with drinking and alcohol that she's still upset about," but he did not elaborate on what those might be.
Ultimately, in deciding to share his raw and unvarnished truth, Jax said, "I don’t really care what anybody thought except for Brittany. To be honest, I just wanted to make sure she was happy," calling the mother of his child "my only priority."
Cartwright filed for divorce in August 2024, citing irreconcilable differences and requesting legal and physical custody of their son. Since then, Taylor shared that he had decided to receive in-patient treatment for his mental health before informing his followers that he was diagnosed with both Bipolar Disorder and PTSD.
Talking about his public admission, Brittany People on March 14, "I'm glad that he finally admitted to what was really going on. For the first time, I can speak openly about the extent of trauma he's instilled on our family over the years."
"I pray that one day he completely knocks this addiction, but I'm skeptical," she continued. "His behaviors are still alarming and his treatment plan seems to be the bare minimum."
"I'm trying to navigate this as best as I can for my son and I, but every day is still a challenge and very difficult," she said. "Jax has caused an enormous amount of damage and I have very little trust in him at this point."
"My only hope is that one day, he will be a better person for his son."
Leaving Vanderpump Rules
While the reality star declined to expand on some of the other issues that led to the end of his relationship, he was perfectly willing to open up about what he did that led to the end of his time on Vanderpump Rules. And again, he absolutely owns that this was his own fault.
Acknowledging that he had "a lot of diva moments" on his final season, as covered by Us Weekly, Jax said that he thinks the final moment came after a season that spent "heated" most of the time with "a lot of arguing and fighting going on as per usual."
One scene that he admitted making particularly difficult came when production wanted the cast to film at the beach in Malibu ... but they all lived in Hollywood.
"So I said that we can do the same scene at a park in West Hollywood," Jax argued. "Like, why do we need to go to rush hour to get to Malibu to shoot a five-minute scene, which is going to take two hours to get there?"
In hindsight, he acknowledged that he was "micromanaging" production in that moment, and possibly others. "I was pulling a diva moment by saying, ‘I’m not going to the beach. We could literally get the same exact conversation that we’re trying to get at the park across the street,'" he recalled.
"They wanted us to go to the beach and help clean -- which is fine -- but I just was not f--king doing it," he explained. "I was not going to drive three hours and that’s when I needed a piece of humble pie."
Looking back, he thinks that "diva moment" driven by ego is probably when Bravo decided they'd "had enough" of Jax Taylor.
But then his podcast cohost, VPR executive producer Alex Baskin, reminded him it was even worse than he remembers. It wasn't just Jax refusing to do it, he "was telling other people not to go," too. "That’s what it was," he told Jax.
"What got to us is you were being a pain in the ass about it and you were saying, ‘I’m not going to go, this is so stupid.’ Then you were texting other people," he elaborated. "So then of course, we saw those texts and were like, ‘Can you believe Jax is sabotaging the production?'”
Jax acknowledged he was over the line in that moment. "It was such a dumb ass move," he conceded. "I feel like that was my nail in the coffin because I’ve rubbed [the producers wrong] throughout the years."
"That was just the final straw," he speculated. "They’re like, ‘Listen, he needs a piece of humble pie and he can’t be doing this. He can’t be texting other cast members trying to form a mutiny."
Jax had been with the show since its beginning until he and Brittany were both suddenly axed in 2020, with the couple alluding to trouble behind the scenes being a factor in their exits.
Since then, though, things have cooled and the couple have found themselves back in the VPR sphere as part of The Valley, a spinoff focusing less on partying and more on family.
Despite their estrangement, both Jax and Brittany are on board for Season 2 of The Valley, where fans can anticipate seeing the collapse of their relationship as their ongoing divorce plays out.
While a release date for the show's second season has not yet been revealed, the teaser alludes to "all hell" breaking "loose" between the pair.
