Katie Maloney Quit ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Before Cast Shakeup

You can’t fire me, I quit. Longtime Vanderpump Rules star Katie Maloney say she had already decided to leave the Bravo show ahead of the dramatic season 12 cast shakeup. 

Katie Maloney ‘didn’t plan on returning’ to ‘Vanderpump Rules’ for season 12 

On Nov. 26, Bravo revealed that it was moving ahead with a 12th season of Vanderpump Rules. But rather than bringing back Maloney and her fellow cast mates, including Tom Sandoval, Tom Schwartz, and Ariana Madix, the network is rebooting the iconic reality show with an entirely new group of SUR-vers. 

While the writing was on the wall for the show, which never really recovered from the Scandoval drama, longtime fans were still stunned. But for Maloney, it came as no surprise. She’d been preparing to leave Pump Rules behind for months. 

“I didn’t plan on returning,” she told co-host Dayna Kathan on the Dec. 3 episode of their Disrespectfully podcast (via YouTube). “Maybe it doesn’t matter at this point, but I had made a decision months ago. After this past season, I needed to move on with my life. And this was before we knew the show was going to be put on pause, before any of that.” 

The ‘Vanderpump Rules’ cast was too ‘fractured’ for another season 

After the Vanderpump Rules Season 11 reunion, Maloney realized that whatever happened with the series, it was time for her association with it to end. 

“I felt personally ready to move on,” she said. “I felt like my life and where I was at was moving in a different direction. Mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, I was prepared to move on from the show … it had been a long time. Many seasons of my life.”

“It just got to the point where I didn’t know if I could live and grow and be the version of myself that I wanted to be on the show anymore,” she added. 

She also sensed that the show itself could not continue given the divisions within the cast. Sandoval’s affair with Rachel Leviss not only destroyed his long-term relationship with Madix, it also pitted old friends against each other as they took sides in drama. The magic and messiness that had previously made the show work was gone. Given that context, Maloney said she understood Bravo’s decision to clean house and hire an all-new cast. 

“I think that the group and the dynamic and what makes that show that would be hard to do because it was so fractured at the end there,” she said. “And many of us don’t hang out … as far as it being a cohesive unit, it just doesn’t exist anymore.”    

Still, coming to terms with the end of the original version of the show was hard. 

“It’s a weird feeling. It’s sad,” Maloney said. “That closing of a chapter is sad no matter what.” 

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