Early this month, Lisa Rinna announced her exit from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Stunned? Sad? Excited? Some fans are feeling all three.
Obviously, there is usually a reason for these things. It can be downright salacious or as mundane as Bravo bigwigs reshuffling things.
But Harry Hamlin just leaked the alleged real reason why Lisa is no longer on RHOBH.
We will of course delve into the possible validity of these words in a moment. But first, let’s check out what he said.
Page Six reports that Harry Hamlin, longtime actor and also the husband of Lisa Rinna, spoke to a group of friends.
An inside source overheard him say that it ultimately came down to Lisa’s fight with Sutton Stracke over Elton John charity tickets.
“Lisa had all the receipts from that night,” the eavesdropper quotes Harry as having said.
“But,” he lamented to listeners, “they never showed the receipts on the reunion.”
According to Harry, IMDB provided the couple with the Academy Awards Viewing Party tickets — not Sutton. And, for the record, Andy Cohen confirmed that Lisa brought the receipts … but that audiences never got to see that.
“She might still be on the show had Sutton not said that,” the witness reports Harry as saying.
“She might still be on the show,” he noted, “but the audience believed Sutton.”
Even so, the report went on, Lisa made peace with her departure from RHOBH.
“All good things come to an end,” Harry reportedly characterized.
“She took it as far as she could take it,” he added.
“Now,” Harry noted, “I’m working like crazy so she doesn’t have to work.”
So, what happened? Sutton Stracke appeared on Watch What Happens Live.
During that guest spot, she claimed that Harry and Lisa had been her guests at the event, but never gave her a thank-you.
Lisa replied that she already had tickets. But, if what Harry reportedly said is true, Bravo for whatever reason let Sutton’s story go unchallenged despite evidence to refute it. And Lisa took the fall.
The first possibility is that the story is patently false, on purpose.
For example, Harry could have been telling his friends a cover story — not expecting it to leak to the public. Simply put, sometimes a spouse will fib a little to cover for the love of their life. (Again, the receipts existed, but that doesn’t mean that they’re the whole story)
Alternatively, it is conceivable that someone could have manufactured a conversation … though Page Six is usually good about ferreting out that sort of false claim.
Another possibility is that there was a genuine misunderstanding. One that proved to be both hurtful and damaging.
Sometimes, a person genuinely believes that they, for example, paid for dinner when someone else covers it. Or misremembers which gift they bought for which friend.
Just because Lisa allegedly had receipts doesn’t mean that one or both of them could not be mistaken in some way.
But there is another possibility in which no one lied at all. At least when it comes to Lisa’s exit from the show.
Maybe Bravo was already looking to shake up the cast before this. In fact, maybe cutting the receipts from the Reunion happened because they already knew that they weren’t sticking with Lisa — so why undercut Sutton?
It will be interesting to see what the show is like without Lisa Rinna.