Kyle Richards has been named as Us Weekly’s Reality Star of the Year — but it didn’t come easy.
During an interview on Tuesday, the 55-year-old Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast member looked back on her early days on Bravo as she spoke of her status with estranged husband Mauricio Umansky, 54, the challenges she faced amid filming on season 14, rumors about Morgan Wade, 29, and her regrets and thoughts on misconceptions.
“I don’t care what anybody thinks anymore. I’m going to do what I want. It feels really good!” Kyle declared during an October 8 interview with Us Weekly. “As time has gone on, I’m more comfortable exposing the parts of me that people maybe didn’t know about. It’s freeing.”
Speaking of being named Reality Star of the Year, Kyle had mixed feelings.
“Obviously, I appreciate it, and on the other, it’s like, ‘Things must be really wild and crazy for me to be on the cover.’ I don’t think you get named Reality Star of the Year without going through a lot of sh*t,” she noted.
As RHOBH fans well know, the past year has been quite eventful for Kyle, having split from her husband of two decades. But all the while, Kyle has shared her heartache with fans.
“I think people appreciate that I’m my authentic self, even if I upset [them] with my opinions or actions. At the end of the day, I know I’m being myself,” she explained.
But it wasn’t always that way.
“I’m a very different person than I was 14 years ago. I was raised not to talk about or share certain things, so I came into the show with that mentality,” Kyle revealed. “It took me a long time to get to this place, but it’s been therapeutic. I’m sharing more than I would’ve felt comfortable [with] a year or two years ago.”
In addition to sharing her family drama on RHOBH, Kyle also addressed her split from Mauricio on his Netflix series, Buying Beverly Hills, on which her four children, Farrah Aldjufrie, 35, Alexia Umansky, 28, Sophia Umansky, 24, and Portia Umansky, 16, were frequently seen.
As for what sparked Kyle to share more, she signaled her best friend Lorene Shea‘s suicide in 2022.
“I was also going through a hard time with my husband, and my sister [Kathy Hilton] and I weren’t speaking. I had to let go of so many things and just rip the Band-Aid off. I felt very exposed and raw, but then I thought, ‘Well, this isn’t so bad. Talking about these things is actually making me feel better,'” she admitted.
Not only has she changed since RHOBH began in 2010, but the show changed as well.
“It was such a different time … We’d be doing an interview, and they’d say, ‘How much did this cost?’ and ‘How much did you spend on this party?’ [That] was so weird for me,” she revealed. “I didn’t get it. And now here we are.”
Although Kyle didn’t think the show would be the success it has become, she suspected that the heavy issues they dealt with helped solidify them as a top show.
“People thought Beverly Hills was going to be the most phony franchise, but we were dealing with the suicide of Taylor Armstrong’s husband, my sister [Kim Richards‘] issues and [Camille Grammer] and her divorce. We were so real,” she noted. “Then Beverly Hills is a brand in itself. People hadn’t seen homes like that. I remember Bethenny Frankel calling me, saying, ‘Oh, my God, these homes.'”
While Kyle has shown a lot over the years, she said there are things that are off-limits to the cameras.
“Showering, sitting on the toilet and sex … these are things I’d like to keep off camera,” she stated.
As for her regrets, Kyle, who is now sober, recalled her past drunken moments.
“I feel like we probably won’t be seeing those again for a while. I haven’t been drinking for two years and three months now. You’ll see a split here and there — without the margarita!” she explained.
Because of her split from Mauricio and the pressure she was under after failing to share everything on season 13, Kyle was admittedly hesitant to return for season 14.
“These last two years have been the most difficult of my life and I didn’t want to put myself through the scrutiny. I didn’t feel supported by a lot of the cast, so I felt like I wanted to disappear for a while,” she explained. “[But] we have a lot of fun times, too, and the producers are family to me at this point, so I knew that would be another loss for me.”
After returning, Kyle again had second thoughts, even threatening to quit at one point in time.
“I had a meltdown. My first in 14 years. I was like, I don’t think I can physically do this anymore. I walked off the set and didn’t shoot the next day. I was at my breaking point. I have so much on my plate, and some of the women just push,” she recalled. “I needed that break. I think they saw [I was] really struggling and were reaching out to me. They actually helped me get through the rest of the season.
At the start of filming on season 14, Kyle was getting ready for Mauricio to move out.
“I knew the day was coming, but when it happens, it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, this is real.’ I was so emotional … When you’re a married mom of four, the house is chaotic. So it felt so different,” she shared. “Portia [and] Sophia are out a lot. Sometimes I’m like, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect this day to come so soon.’ It is sad for me.”
While Mauricio stepped out with rumored new girlfriend Nikita Kahn, 33, over the summer, Kyle said she still doesn’t consider herself “single” and doesn’t “know what the future holds” for her and Mauricio.
“We love each other. So that part is easy,” she noted. “What’s not easy is figuring out what’s next. We’re not divorced; he doesn’t live here, but we’re still figuring things out. On the show, people felt they were owed answers and thought I was withholding stuff — but I’m figuring it out myself.”
During filming on season 14, Kyle and Mauricio filmed together “quite a bit.”
“He’ll come over for dinner and it’s like nothing has changed, yet everything has changed. The best way I can put it is that we’re family,” Kyle gushed. “It’s easy for us to get along because we never fought. That was not an issue in our marriage; there’s so much love there. [But] shooting scenes after he moved out was very difficult. We were catching up in front of the cameras, so emotions were raw. He would check on me, and I was just a mess sometimes.”
As Mauricio continues to be linked to Nikita, Kyle has faced ongoing rumors of a potential romance with Morgan.
“I felt bad she was going through that. It’s quieted down for sure, but I was at a music festival where she was playing, and it was like, ‘Oh, my God, Kyle’s backstage!’ They get excited. I tune it out,” Kyle shared.
Throughout her time in the spotlight, Kyle has faced a number of misconceptions. But according to Kyle, she simply doesn’t care “anymore.”
“You’re free to think what you want about me,” she said.
As for the hardest part about filming her life for Bravo, Kyle signaled to family drama.
“The stuff with my sisters. My family comes with some drama. Being on TV, you don’t have the luxury of choosing what you show,” she noted. “The stuff with my marriage was hard enough to go through without cameras. At the time, my husband was not prepared to share anything, so it came off strange and that was hard. When I started talking more openly about it, I felt a lot better.”
Despite Kim’s apparent relapse and the drama between them, Kyle said that “at the end of the day, we all love each other.”
“It can be difficult. Depending on what that person’s going through, it weighs heavily on the whole family,” she admitted.
After wrapping production on RHOBH season 14, Kyle is producing two new television dramas and a docuseries with actress Reese Witherspoon, 48.
“I was working on a project, and I met with her production company, Hello Sunshine, and they loved it, so I teamed up with them,” Kyle revealed. “[Reese and I later] sat across from each other [on a flight], but I didn’t know it was her because she had a mask on. When we got outside, I was like, ‘Oh, it’s Reese Witherspoon. Hi, it’s Kyle.’ She was very sweet.
Kyle is also focused on her daughters and other projects.
“The end goal is to be happy and at peace,” she concluded. “[In 10 years, I see myself] surrounded by a lot of dogs. I probably wouldn’t be living in L.A. full-time; I’d be in the mountains where there’s more nature — and not so much chaos!”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 14 premieres this fall on Bravo.
