The 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' star talks to The Hollywood Reporter about navigating new challenges in season 14 and why you shouldn't believe every headline about her marriage.
“I just didn’t have it in me anymore. I was at a point where I was so depressed, frankly,” she tells The Hollywood Reporter of an episode still to come, which is teased at the end of Tuesday night’s episode. “I’m not someone who gets depressed. I’ve had anxiety my entire life but never depression. I really felt like I was struggling with depression and I expressed that. And I just felt like I could not go into scenarios all the time and just have everyone coming at me.”
Richards says when this happened seven months ago, she stepped away for about a week during production. (The Evolution Media-produced series spends one week filming each episode.) The break also came after serious reflection on her part, as she came thisclose to not returning for season 14. What pushed her to remain on the hit Bravo franchise was her desire to keep busy amid a newly quiet home. The Beverly Hills actress-producer and mother of four daughters, whose youngest is 16, was living her life for the first time without Umansky by her side.
Her cast also had their own personal lives to manage, particularly Dorit Kemsley, who also this season opens up about her separation from her husband of nine years, Paul “PK” Kemsley. Richards and Kemsley’s now-fractured friendship came to blows, again, in last week’s episode, which ended on a to-be-continued note when Kemsley confronted Richards about her communications with PK. Their drama only escalates when the show returns Tuesday.
Below, Richards responds to Kemsley’s accusations while broadly discussing everything from Real Housewives filmmaking secrets and her future projects (including the one with Reese Witherspoon), while also opening up about the challenges she’s facing amid her separation and why she can’t predict how many more years she’ll star on RHOBH.
[Editor’s note: Richards, who resides in Encino, spoke with THR last week before the wildfires broke out in L.A. County.]
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From interviews you’ve given ahead of this season, it sounded like this was the closest you ever got to actually not returning to RHOBH. How close did you get, and what made you decide you wanted to stay on for season 14?
It was absolutely the closest I’ve ever gotten to not coming back to the show. The show is a lot of pressure as it is, and I had so much going on in my personal life that was difficult and painful. I was like, “I don’t really know how I can go through a season dealing with this.” We also have a lot of fun on the show too, and I didn’t even know if I had it in me to do that.
I remember coming home when Mau [her nickname for Umansky] had first moved out and [their daughter] Alexia had just moved out. It was like, “Oh my gosh, my house is so quiet.” I’m not used to that. It was one of those days where no one was there. This was going to be weird for me to have this new life of having less people home, I thought. And, on top of that, wanting to be busy and occupied. Even though I’m producing and doing other things, the show takes up an unbelievable amount of your time (laughs), and while that can be a bad thing at times (laughs), when you want to distract yourself it’s a good thing. That was part of it. Also, the people who I do the show with — the crew and production and the people I’ve worked with for these last 16 years — are a big part of my life. I felt like that was going to feel like another loss, and I didn’t know if I had that in me. So I really had to take time to process all of that, and that was what ultimately made me decide.
We had a little break over the holidays. RHOBH took two weeks off and returned Jan. 7. This was your first holiday break separated from Mau. What did the holidays look like for you this year?
They didn’t look any differently, honestly. We went to Aspen, to our home there. We went as a family. We had our dinners together and skied and all of that stuff. In that sense, things haven’t changed. I never imagined I’d be in this position or that we’d be going through this. But we are a very close-knit family and it’s the only way we’ve known how to do this. It seems to be working for us. I don’t think it can continue to go on like this forever, but it’s been working and we’ve been navigating through it, so I am grateful for that.
Have you been watching this season each week?
I watch it on my phone when they first send it to us to get an idea of what’s being said. You really can’t catch everything when you’re watching it on your phone, you definitely miss some of the nuances. But I do it just to keep sane. I watch a little bit to see what’s going on and then I try to let it go. I don’t look at any of the stories or comments. It’s just too difficult and too frustrating. My hands are usually tied with explaining things and I’m just like, “I’m not even going to try anymore!”
What was the conversation like between you and Mau about filming this season? How did you land on the right amount of filming together?
We’ve never discussed anything in advance, in all these years of doing the show, and it wasn’t any different this year. It was not discussed ahead of time what we were going to talk about, which is how we’ve always done it. And that’s not even a calculated decision, it’s just sort of how it happens. “Can you shoot at this time?” And then we just show up. There have been many times where I thought, “Why didn’t we talk about this?” But it just never works out that way. (Laughs.)
I watch it on my phone when they first send it to us to get an idea of what’s being said. You really can’t catch everything when you’re watching it on your phone, you definitely miss some of the nuances. But I do it just to keep sane. I watch a little bit to see what’s going on and then I try to let it go. I don’t look at any of the stories or comments. It’s just too difficult and too frustrating. My hands are usually tied with explaining things and I’m just like, “I’m not even going to try anymore!”
What was the conversation like between you and Mau about filming this season? How did you land on the right amount of filming together?
We’ve never discussed anything in advance, in all these years of doing the show, and it wasn’t any different this year. It was not discussed ahead of time what we were going to talk about, which is how we’ve always done it. And that’s not even a calculated decision, it’s just sort of how it happens. “Can you shoot at this time?” And then we just show up. There have been many times where I thought, “Why didn’t we talk about this?” But it just never works out that way. (Laughs.)
You’ve spoken about how you felt like your castmates thought they were owed answers from you last season, during a time where you were still figuring things out for yourself. So far this season, we’ve watched you open up about that process in your confessionals. How would you describe where you and Mau are at right now?
Our relationship right now is that we’re family. We’re friends. We’re great co-parents. I think we’re both just kind of nervous and afraid of this next chapter, so we’ve probably avoided it, honestly. We just get along and people assume that I get really angry with him. I see all these headlines: “Kyle So Upset and So Devastated.” First of all, those sources are all made up and it’s just so annoying. Of course I have reactions to certain things, but I’ve never expressed this to people, so these headlines are annoying to see. I kind of want to say [to Mau], “Just so you know, I never said that” and “This story doesn’t exist.” But I think we’re finally getting to a place where we’re OK. Obviously things have to probably change, and we’re just working through that right now.
You can set the record straight about those stories being untrue.
There are stories that say I’m crying and things like that. They assume something, so they just invent it. Obviously, it’s strange to see his personal life played out all the time. Photos of him walking down the street [with other women]. But while it may be strange, we’re not together like that, so it is what it is.
From the trailer, it looks like you two discuss some of this coming up on the season. Is that something you are nervous to air?
Yes, we do. We knew it was inevitable that it was going to come up. It was out there every day in our faces. I knew he wouldn’t want to talk about it, but he actually brought it up on his own because he knew it was the elephant in the room. I sat there and let him talk about that. I remember thinking, “I am really dreading this.” Because it’s going to be up again in six months [when it airs], and I don’t really feel like giving these fleeting people attention!
It sounds like by the end of the season you arrive in a different place than you were when going through it. Did you approach this season differently when it came to drama with your castmates because of what you were going through personally?
I am an open book. Sometimes you have to consider other people, whether it’s my children or whoever. My kids will say they don’t want me to talk about this or that, and I have to respect that. So while I myself am an open book, I was having to walk the line with certain areas of my life, and I came into this wanting to even be honest about that. I am here to say anything and everything about myself — and I want to. I find it to actually be very therapeutic. I felt like I could use the show to my advantage in that respect, because it has been therapeutic and healing for me to have to be open about these difficult things. As far as my castmates, I think they all knew I was coming from a very fragile place, and you don’t get a lot of grace in these times because of what we do. And that’s hard. I’m thinking, “I know they have compassion, why can’t we show that? Even though we are on reality television. I’m struggling. Let’s be there for each other no matter what.”
Also teased was an upcoming scene where you walk away and seem to stop filming. How hard did it get for you during filming? And, did you regret that?
I regretted how I handled it, but not leaving. I just didn’t have it in me anymore. I was at a point where I was so depressed, frankly. I’m not someone who gets depressed. I’ve had anxiety my entire life but never depression, and I really felt like I was struggling with depression and I expressed that. And I just felt like I could not go into scenarios all the time and just have everyone coming at me. I thought, “Maybe today will be different,” as naïve as that sounds. People I thought were my friends, all of a sudden it felt like they weren’t. I just felt like it was too much with what was going on in my life and I thought, “Why would I subject myself to this? I don’t know why I’m continuing to do this.”
Did you actually take a minute and step back?
I did. I said, “I just can’t do this; I can’t film right now.” And production respected that. They know that I’ve never done that. In all these years, I’ve never called in sick or not shown up for anything ever; I’ve never canceled a shoot. So they said, “Take this time, I think you need it, and we’ll reconvene when you’re feeling better.” I definitely felt supported by the network and production, so I took that time until I felt strong again and gathered my thoughts at what I wanted to do.
How much time did you take?
Well, not that much time. To me it was a lot, because I’ve never walked away. I actually don’t remember now since it was seven months ago, but not more than a week. We make an episode a week. If I was going to walk away, I had to walk away. And if I had it in me to stay, I had to be respectful of what I signed up for. So I took that into consideration, too. Unfortunately, the people-pleaser in me didn’t [fully] walk away! I was struggling with that, too.
I’d imagine that would signify you were having a tough time, to actually pause filming. When you came back, did you feel supported?
There’s a scene where I did and then there were some people who said they were going to hold me accountable for walking out. And I was going to choose to turn the other way on that one because I didn’t want to go through that again. I was getting a little stronger when I came back and then once I got past that, I don’t know if “supported” would be the word, but I think they understood.
The Jan. 7 episode ended with fireworks between you and Dorit. She confronted you about having a texting relationship with PK and in her confessional, she said that if it were reversed, you wouldn’t be OK with her talking to Mau. [This comes up again on Tuesday, when Richards shows stories circulating about Dorit and Mau.] Can you react to that?
I just felt like we already made up so many times and she kept coming up with things again and again. I said, “OK, I see what’s going on here. You’re going to keep doing this over and over.” I felt such a sense of relief when we would fix things and move on, and then when she would do that I was like, “I can’t. Why is this happening every time we come together as a group? This is an ensemble cast, we’re all showing our lives, why can’t we focus on what’s going on in everyone’s lives instead of me feeling humbled every time?” (Laughs.)
PK and I have always had this brother-sister type of situation; she’d always talk about that. She loved it and laughed about it. Even when she and I had our little arguments, he would stay out of it. And it really was just us sending each other funny memes. That’s the extent of it. It was made out to be something much bigger than it was and it was extremely frustrating. I was also thinking that Dorit and I hadn’t even been speaking for months, and PK was just checking in every now and then. When Mau and I were separated, he’s very close to my husband, so he would hear from my husband that I might be struggling and he would reach out. Other than that, it was just funny memes. PK was like one of the girls, he would tell you that himself. But I had also told the other women that if she would ever have a problem with that, even though we’re not speaking, I would not send him these memes or replying to these memes (laughs), as silly as this sounds. It was just made out to be something so much bigger than it was. I knew she’d be coming into this season hot; I already knew she’d be coming for me. I had to keep telling myself that, but it just got too draining.
You tell her you are “done” and there’s a dramatic “To Be Continued” to end that episode. What happens next for you two this season?
I have not watched this episode yet, by the way. Until you just asked me about it. They sent it to me and in true form, I forgot and haven’t watched. So I’ll be watching after we hang up! Do I want to watch this and have my day ruined? I don’t know.
Listen, I come from a family of all women. I have all daughters, I know what it must seem like to say, “Kyle was communicating with PK.” I don’t even have guy friends. I have gay guy friends, but I don’t have guy friends. I’m very much a girls-girl my whole life. Even my husband was like, “This is so dumb that they made such a big thing about this.” I understand it’s about girl code. But there are a lot of things that were girl code that Dorit did not stick with that got us in that position in the first place. I understand how it’s going to look and how it may be perceived by some people, but I won’t be paying attention to those comments either because I know I had no bad intentions. That’s pretty clear to people who know me. Whether that’s people in my life or the audience who knows me.
Do you Dorit move past this, or does it send you two sideways?
It’s like one step forward, two steps back. But we did eventually. We did go recently to a party at Kathy’s house [Kyle’s sister Kathy Hilton is a “friend” of the Housewives in season 14]. I just wanted it to get back to where we were. Because all I kept thinking is that we should be supporting each other now. We’ve gotten to this good place, why do we have to do this again? We should be leaning on each other; we’re both going through a hard time.
Your tagline this season is, “These hills have eyes, and they’re all staring at me.” Did you come up with that or did the producers?
Sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s a fan, sometimes it’s the network. That was production/the network by just how they saw my life, and having the bigger picture. They have sometimes, let’s call it an aerial shot, whereas I’m just in it. These past couple years of having been talked about in my personal life daily and having the paparazzi follow me and even coming into the group with everyone questioning my life, I think that’s where it came from. I was like, “OK, I had other ideas I wanted to say!”
You and Dorit are each separated; no one else on the Real Housewives cast is married. We recently spoke to your new co-star Bozoma Saint John about this. Having been here from the start, how do you think this shows the evolution of Real Housewives?
There have always been people who weren’t married and separated on the show. But on Beverly Hills, we all started out married. I’ve always said I didn’t believe in the “reality show curse” because my perception was that a lot of people come into this with fractures in their marriage and then they are looking at this as a way out. That certainly was not my story. I don’t know if it speaks to where we are in 2025, but for me, I definitely do believe that money and fame and all that is not great for a marriage. I don’t think it is. Years ago, when we didn’t have any money, I would say, “Well that’s OK, we can move to Vail and you can be a ski teacher. And I can be with the kids and bake cookies.” (Laughs.) I think if that happened for our path in life, my guess is we would not be in this situation right now.
