In many ways, it was a typical Friday in Los Angeles: At Petit Ermitage, a secluded West Hollywood hotel coated in lush green vines, Hollywood producers lounged by the rooftop pool, languidly smoking cigarettes.
Just blocks away, a cluster of WeHo restaurants—TomTom, SUR, and the yet-to-open Something About Her, all made famous by the stars of the hit Bravo reality show Vanderpump Rules—were bustling with activity, both outside and within.
But there’s been a disturbance in the force. Rather than swapping Cannes stories, the producers posted up at Petit Ermitage on Friday were all bemoaning the just-announced, industry-shaking SAG-AFTRA strike.
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The day before, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher declared that the actors union would be joining the Writers Guild of America, who’ve been striking since May, in the battle for higher residuals and the fight against the encroaching threat of AI in Hollywood. The union is attempting to negotiate a new contract with the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) after its last contract expired on July 12.
With the commencement of the strike last week, production on many prominent TV and film projects, including several at Marvel Studios as well as the eighth Mission: Impossible movie, immediately came to a halt.
Meanwhile, production on the next season of Vanderpump Rules, a show that was originally conceived as a spinoff focusing on the eateries owned by Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Vanderpump, began in June and is still very much underway. Cast members Katie Maloney and Ariana Madix were photographed filming scenes at an L.A. thrift store earlier this month. In the past week alone, Scheana Shay was seen yelling at Tom Sandoval for a scene filmed at SUR; Sandoval and Lisa Vanderpump were spotted filming at TomTom; and Sandoval was captured weeping by himself at SUR while cameras rolled and Madix, his ex-partner, sat just feet away.
Why is Sandoval still clocking in to cry on camera amid the strike? Because VPR (as well as other unscripted programs and variety shows, including The Voice and America’s Got Talent) is covered under the SAG-AFTRA Network Code, or the National Code of Fair Practice for Network Television Broadcasting. A new Network Code contract was ratified last summer for work on reality shows, soap operas, and talk shows, and the contract doesn’t expire until 2024, meaning that at present, production on all such programs can go forward.
With scripted programming on an indefinite hiatus, studios may have to lean even more heavily on unscripted reality shows to carry them through the drought.
Enter Vanderpump Rules. The recently concluded 10th season was, by all accounts, its most explosive ever, earning record-setting ratings: Season 10 reached 11.4 million total viewers and VPR became the most-watched cable series in 2023 in the 18-49 demographic.
The revelation that Sandoval was cheating on Madix with Raquel Leviss, the 28-year-old former fiancé of another cast member, James Kennedy, ripped into the cultural consciousness in March after only a few episodes of Season 10 had aired, fueling the huge ratings. The scandal even got its own catchy nickname: Scandoval.
As they log their hours for Season 11, the Vanderpump Rules stars are being stalked by dogged paparazzi and rabid fans while filming episodes of television that won’t even air until next year. The fourth wall has effectively been shattered.
On Saturday, a well-dressed couple lingered outside Something About Her, the hotly anticipated sandwich shop being launched by Madix and Maloney. The couple, who are big Vanderpump Rules fans, had just visited SUR, and later, they said, they were going to have dinner at TomTom and try to spot the cast members filming.
The stars of Vanderpump Rules, of course, benefit from this kind of inflated attention, as well as their ability to keep working amid a strike that’s rattled the rest of the TV industry. It does, however, come with less-than-ideal working conditions. Last week, a fan of the show was seen screaming at Sandoval and fellow cast member Tom Schwartz as the two filmed a scene at TomTom. Meanwhile, Leviss, the cast member who had an affair with Sandoval, received such a torrent of hate after their clandestine relationship was exposed that she checked into a mental health facility shortly after filming the Season 10 reunion in April. She remained in treatment for two months.
Leviss is bound to the 11th season of Vanderpump Rules because of an existing contract with Bravo, TMZ reported over the weekend. But she has yet to begin filming scenes for the new season because she is still “renegotiating possible terms” in her contract, her representative told TMZ.
Sources told The Hollywood Reporter in 2020 that core cast members of Vanderpump Rules each make around $25,000 per episode since signing new contracts in 2017 and 2018. But the runaway success of the 10th season may have upped that number considerably, as cast members like Leviss presumably attempt to leverage their roles in “Scandoval” into bigger paychecks.
For now, though, Vanderpump Rules carries on as usual. Peter Madrigal, the longtime manager of SUR and a reliable voice of reason on the show, held court with a glass of wine toward the end of his shift at the restaurant on Saturday, emitting the good-natured but harried vibes of a seasoned restaurant industry professional.
“Who’s Lisa Vanderpump?” Madrigal cracked to a group of friends inquiring about the show.
Asked by The Daily Beast whether he’s personally been filming scenes for Season 11, Madrigal demurred, saying, “We’ll see.”
“We’ve been dealing with that for years,” he added of the intense curiosity the show has contended with this summer. “We’re always busy.”
But when asked if an increased amount of eager patrons eager to listen in on scandalous conversations have been causing disruptions lately, Madrigal acknowledged that things have been “brutal.”
“I’m not even a veteran” of the show, Madrigal said. “I should be retired at this point.”
