If Monday night’s episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is any indication, this season Brandi Glanville—i.e., she whom Eddie Cibrian divorced for LeAnn Rimes—isn’t taking any you-know-what. As the leggy former model said during a recent interview at Sur Restaurant, pal Lisa Vanderpump’s West Hollywood eatery, “I feel like, guess what bitches? You can’t get rid of me! It’s like, Hi!”
Indeed. If last season Brandi was the beleaguered newbie, hobbled, literally, by a broken foot, and some nasty eruptions from Kyle and Kim Richards (who at one point hid her crutches behind a sofa), this season she’s on, forgive the pun, much firmer footing. A legit housewife (“I got a promotion!”) with her own opening credit, Glanville appears more confident and fearless this year, even as behind the scenes she is battling Cibrian over whether or not her two young boys can appear on The Housewives. Brandi, who sees nothing wrong with having the kids in the background while filming—Cibrian disagrees—charges that her ex and Rimes "set up all these paparazzi shoots with my children all the time, and I don't say a word. It annoys me." On camera, Brandi is no less forthright—or prone to spewing foot-in-mouth faux pas that send the ladies reeling.
So are you aware that you do that—say things that might even be inappropriate for reality TV?
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Brandi Glanville: I’m a jokester. And definitely, shit just comes out of my mouth.
And it gets you in trouble.
Glanville: Yes. It has my whole life. Just now I'm on TV so everyone can see what an asshole I can be. But I try to say things that are the truth, and I don't hold back, and sometimes it does get me into trouble. But I'm not just being catty. I'm joking 99% of the time.
Last season you had a particularly difficult time with Kyle and Kim Richards, who unleashed some serious Mean Girl-ness in your direction. How are things this season?
Glanville: They were hard (last season). They were complete assholes. But I don't hold grudges. But you only get a certain amount of—then I shut down. Right now we're fine. I mean throughout the season did we have our ups and downs, absolutely. Kim and I, it's still a work in progress. I think it's always gonna be a work in progress just because of what happened and what went down.
This season’s “new” girl is Yolanda Foster, the wife of composer-producer David Foster. Was she hazed as much as you were?
Glanville: It’s weird, because no one was mean to her like they were to me. Because she’s beautiful and she’s got celebrity—she’s with David Foster. I was curious to see how they would treat her, having seen how they treated me—nothing but lovely.
I think because of her celebrity and status in the community, they’re a little afraid of her. (Smiles) And I like it.
So I guess it’s inevitable: you have a book.
Glanville: I have a book, yes. Everyone has a book. It’s coming out hopefully in late January or February. We’re with Simon & Schuster. We just turned in the manuscript.
And it’s your take on … life?
Glanville: It’s my story, it’s a break-up book. It’s, actually, we did a contest and now it’s called Don’t Drink and Tweet and other Break-up Blunders. It's a book hopefully that women will take away feeling empowered by, knowing that, guess what, it happens to everyone, and this is how low I went, and don't be embarrassed and ashamed, and these are the mistakes I made, don't do them, but laugh with me at the fact that I've come through this process and how I got here.
Speaking of brand extensions, who of the RHOBH has the most stuff?
Glanville: Stuff?
Merchandise, you know ...
Glanville: Adrienne. She’s always hawking something. What doesn't she have? She has shoes, she has cellphone covers. Trees, I don't know.. She has a vodka. She has a book—supposedly. A sports team. A casino—kind of. All of these business ventures. Oh, skin care. It’s never ending. I don’t think she really has a book.
Ouch.
Glanville: I don’t get along with Adrienne, which is unfortunate. Something happened in between and before (this season’s taping).
Remind me. What I remember from the last reunion show was Adrienne blaming Lisa for allegedly selling stories about Adrienne to the tabloids.
Glanville: But it kind of involved me because she wanted to meet up and go over what we were gonna go after Lisa for, and I didn’t want to do it. I was like, this is so ridiculous. I’m not doing that. And then things ... Things went down during the break that will be explained during the season. I mean, I don’t see us being friends in the future.
Adrienne’s divorce (from Paul Nassif) is getting ugly, with reports that he abused her. Do you buy that?
Glanville: Here’s what I’ll say about that. That chef guy, Bernie, I don’t believe what comes out of his mouth, because he’s tried to sell stories about me and my children. And he doesn’t know me or my children. And he doesn't know me or my children. So just having had him do that to me, just coming from him, I say consider the source. Because he's a dirt bag.
So you think Bernie—Adrienne’s chef—is the source?
Glanville: I think so.
What about Taylor? You basically called her opportunistic for racing to put out a memoir on the heels of her husband Russell’s suicide.
Glanville: It’s just weird because I feel sorry for her, but at the same time she fucking annoys me. Do you know what I mean? Every time I think, Oh, poor her, she does something very asshole-ic. I just made up a word.
She had to face a $1.5 million breach-of-contract lawsuit claiming that she and Russell scammed money to live a “lavish lifestyle.” (The suit was settled out of court.) Does this win her sympathy with the ladies?
Glanville: I think Taylor is not in a great space right now as far as financials. I know she was having to give her Birkin bags over and they wanted her ring and all this stuff. That can't be great. I can't imagine.
Who wanted her things?
Glanville: All the people that were suing her for all of the shady deals they made. They wanted her purses and her jewelry and her this and that. I can't imagine that's easy for her.
And she handed it over?
Glanville: Yeah. But they said the bags were fake.
What about Lisa? She has a spin-off show coming up, which is about this place, Sur.
Glanville: Here’s a joke that we have amongst a few of us. There are three words you’ll never hear a housewife say: How. Are. You. Because they don’t care... So no one’s asking Lisa about her spin-off show. They can’t even get their heads around the fact that she has a spin-off show. It’s so gross. It’s like, be happy for other people.
I don’t think anyone will forget “Games Night,” which started out innocently enough but ended up with some rather insane behavior from a few people. Kim Richards, for one, hid your crutches.
Glanville: I’m still scarred from that night. When I watch that scene, I get knots in my stomach, because I remember how horrible it was. I was crying at one point (during filming), and I remember one of the producers—you can’t break the wall, but there are producers everywhere—and I was like, I just want to leave, can someone get my crutches? And his face, he couldn’t do anything. I wasn’t used to it yet, so I didn’t know, like, no one could do anything. I was like, get me the fuck out of here.
So the drama was real?
Glanville: It was real. It is real.
