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Lisa Rinna looked back on the death threats she received from fans amid her final season on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills while appearing on a recent podcast.
Over a year after she exited the show following a mountain of drama with Kathy Hilton, 64, who she accused of threatening her sister, Kyle Richards, 55, amid a meltdown in Aspen, Lisa reflected on the “hate and vitriol” she experienced, claiming she believed viewers simply misunderstood the grieving process she endured after the death of her mom, Lois Rinna.
“They got really mad about it, ‘they’ being the fanbase, and they didn’t know why. I don’t think they understood why,” Lisa shared on The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet podcast, via the Daily Mail. “They all of a sudden hated me, couldn’t stand me, wanted me off the show.”
According to Lisa, she knows she’s pushed boundaries on the show and been a “very controversial character,” but she says she was simply doing her job “really well.”
“I can honestly tell you I don’t think I did anything different this past year or the year I ended the show than I’d done any time before,” she insisted. “It manifested in a great deal of social media hatred, like bullying, like death threats. Like, really intense, [more] than I’d ever seen.”
Although Lisa had been a beloved cast member on RHOBH for years, season 12 led many to accuse her of driving a wedge between Kathy and Kyle, who’ve feuded on and off for years.
Despite the drama, Lisa was left confused at the intensity of viewers, many of whom infamously booed her at BravoCon in October of last year.
“I could not figure out why they turned so greatly during that time, and I can only come up with it was too painful for them to see it and feel it, and they were like, ‘You need to go. That’s too much.’ And so I got this barrage of hate and vitriol that I’d never seen before. And I’ve seen a great deal of it, but this was another level,” she shared. “And I also think it’s, you know, where we are in society and what’s going on in the world. It was like this perfect storm of hatred.”
After leaving the show last January, Lisa hasn’t tuned in. But she has kept in touch with many of her former castmates, some of whom she recently reunited with.
“I see my girls still… I just had a dinner with four of them and we had a ball. No one knows about it until I just told you,” Lisa revealed to Extra on May 10, noting that the group “didn’t take any photos.”
“There [were] four of us at the table and that’s all I’m going to say,” she teased, refusing to name who was at the mystery dinner.
As she continues to focus on her acting career, Lisa, who recently starred alongside daughter Delilah Belle Hamlin, 25, in Lifetime’s Mommy Meanest, said she’s having “so much fun.”
“She never wanted to be an actor and now that she’s acting, I think it’s just in her blood, I really do. She’s a real natural so it’s exciting,” she stated of her daughter.
As for her beauty line, Rinna Beauty, Lisa said she loves being in the cosmetics industry.
“I’m very passionate as you know and I’m hands-on. I don’t just put my name to something,” she confirmed.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 14 is currently in production and expected to begin airing on Bravo later this year or early next year.
