House of Stassi S1E1

Kia ora, hello and welcome to Anyway! The blog where I unpack the chaos of reality TV.

Today we’re revisiting an old friend, the devil herself, and don’t you forget it. Yes, let’s dive into House of Stassi Episode 1. We open with Stassi walking into her testimonial. She’s jazzed that they’re working with that Disney money, and who can blame her? They make a profit of like 12 billion dollars a year or something. Stassi wants to tell the kids who she is. She was the star of Vanderpump Rules for eight seasons. We then get a montage of content creators bigging Stassi up. She explains that she was kind of a villain on the show, and we see people talking about the slap heard around the world, which I think we can all agree Kristen completely deserved.

Kristen had doubled, tripled, quadrupled down on the fact that her and Jax DID NOT fuck, when in fact they did. Not once, but twice. One of those times was while watching the 2011 Ryan Gosling movie Drive. I’ve never seen Drive, so I can’t really speak to its aphrodisiac effects, but Ryan Gosling does have a certain allure to him. Anyway, enough about Ryan Gosling. That man gets far too much attention. Back to Stassi. She says, "And then" — WOMP WOMP WOMP — 2020 hits. Stassi gets booted off VPR and cancelled in general, which was a consequence of her and Kristen’s actions in 2018. In 2018, Stassi and Kristen reported their Black coworker, Faith, to the police for a crime she did not commit, which is obviously incredibly fucked up. While I’m clearly not down with any of that shit, I don’t necessarily agree with cancelling people, and I think, as a whole, we’ve come to the understanding that someone should be able to apologise for their shitty actions and move forward in a better way. From what I can tell, Stassi has done, and is doing, exactly that.

Anyway, she tells us that she’s not exactly the Stassi we saw on Vanderpump. Cut to a montage of her cussing people the fuck out. But that Stassi may still be just a wee bit in there. She talks about starting over. We get clips of her and Beau with their adorable kids, Hartford and Messer. Stassi says that she demanded Hulu give her a show, which really speaks to her power, honestly. She talks about being on Vanderpump Villa with Lisa, which I’ve seen seasons one and two of, but not three. Because fuck Dad Tok, quite frankly. Although they are only on one or two episodes, so I may skip those and watch the rest at some point. Anywho, Stassi tells us that from Vanderpump Villa, she got to shoot some test footage for her own show. Stassi says that when you're shooting a reality show, hard truths come to the surface. Which is like... no fucking shit.

A producer asks Stassi where she thinks they should start. She votes for the test shoot, the footage that got Hulu to buy the show. The producer says, "That wasn’t supposed to air." But because Stassi herself is a producer on the show, she explains that people need backstory and context, and she says, "It’s good drama." We get some creepy, Stepford Wives-like music and see the text "CHAPTER I – THE TEST SHOOT" pop up, followed by "ONE HOUR BEFORE THE DRAMA BEGAN." Stassi is talking to Taylor, her best friend, about her bloodshot eye. She says she looks like she has a "Walking Dead disease." Honestly, bloodshot eyes are scary. I had two bloodshot eyes on Sunday after stepping off a plane in Auckland. My daughter looked at me and was all, "Mama, what’s wrong with your eyes?" I looked in the mirror and looked like I wanted to murder someone, not just because I’d been on a plane for seven hours.

Taylor says her dad is an eye surgeon, and he said that can happen one of two ways: lifting heavy things or straining to poop. Neither of which I did on my flight home, FYI. But also, probably TMI. Anyway, we see Stassi in her earlier test shoot testimonial. She says it feels like she’s never left reality TV, and her goal is to be Kris Jenner. She has mad respect for the Kardashians. Who amongst us doesn’t? She wants to have her finger in every pie, all while doing it with her family.

She then tells us about her husband, Beau, and how he takes care of their house, and they do everything 50/50. Except Beau does the meals and handles drop-off every day... soooo I guess the math ain’t mathing there. Stassi then tells us about her sister Georgi. She says, "She’s like a starving artist with zero practical skills." She tells us about Taylor. Taylor is her best friend and her work wife, although Taylor has an actual wife called Teddy. We see Taylor saying that she was married to a man for a while and thought she was straight her whole life, but after her marriage ended, she had the urge to kiss a woman. She says that she didn’t really have the urge to go down on a woman... buuuuut that’s kind of a deal breaker in the lesbian world, so she put on her big girl panties and started eating puss.

Stassi tells us about Rob, Beau’s best friend. Rob is seemingly a man-child. She then introduces us to Georgia, who is Beau’s sister and is from Italy. According to Stassi, Georgia likes to stay with them a whole heap when she’s over from Italy, which would be annoying. She’s apparently obsessed with Beau. Beau tells us they share a birth father, and he learned about her when he was 21. He tells us that she’s like superglued to him. She wants to be with him 24/7, and they give off couple vibes when they’re together. It’s very much giving that weird phenomenon of biological relatives meeting later in life and falling in love.

The obsession becomes evident when Stassi tells us they have matching tattoos of each other’s names. We get a shot of Beau’s tattoo of his sister’s name. Not only is the tattoo super weird because it’s an homage to his sister, but also, the kerning on that tattoo is so completely off, it’s not even funny. The "a" on the end doesn’t even look like it’s part of the word. It’s basically an orphan. Although, in terms of typography, an orphan is usually a single line of text in a paragraph that gets stranded somewhere all alone to fend for itself.

I guess what we’re looking at with this weird-ass tattoo is a grapheme (GRAF-eem) split: a broken word, essentially. My guess is that Beau got the tattoo on a whim. He went into the studio and chose a font from dafont.com. No shade to them. I used their services a lot in my earlier days as a graphic designer. But I can almost guarantee he chose a crappy, half-complete script font where the creator took zero time to account for how letters actually look together and the spacing between them. And this is why you don’t use janky-ass fonts when getting a tattoo, because this kind of shit is bound to happen. Trust me, I know all too well the perils of bad typography being permanently etched onto one’s body.

Anyway, Stassi is disturbed by the tattoo and, unlike me, it’s not because of the kerning. She says that not only did the tattoo blow up a BBQ, but it nearly caused an international incident. Georgi, Stassi’s sister, not to be confused with Georgia, Beau’s sister, wants to talk about Italy. We rewind to footage from the end of Vanderpump Villa Season 2 of Stassi losing her shit about the tattoo and how she wants HER name on Beau’s body. Which is petty, but like... I get it. It’s a bit fucking weird to have your sister’s name tattooed on you, but not your wife’s. And it’s not like Beau is exactly that discerning when it comes to the things he’s getting tattooed on his body. I mean, that’s evident from the quality of the "Georgia" tattoo and, well, quite a few of the other tattoos I can see.

And like Stassi said, it’s not really about the tattoo. It’s about making your wife feel like she’s a priority. We see footage of Vanderpump Rules Stassi coming back to haunt Beau. The old dark passenger herself. Stassi says to Beau, "You feel safe with me, but I can make you feel unsafe." Anyway, the whole night, which I believe was Stassi’s birthday, unravelled. Beau kind of acted like a victim in the scenario, which is not exactly the case.

Cut back to the test footage of this barbecue they're at, discussing the Italy situation. Teddy tells Stassi that the whole thing made her really uncomfortable. Turns out they were all uncomfortable with what had happened. As a response, Stassi says, "Imagine getting married to someone, having two kids with them, and they draw the line at not wanting to get your name tattooed on them." And she’s correct. That’s fucked up. Is it grounds for divorce? Not in my mind. But obviously they’re still together. Stassi says that she had no idea a fight between her and her husband would affect them so deeply. She says they all need to get a fucking hobby, which I kind of agree with. But also, if you’re on holiday together and there’s been a massive bust-up in front of everyone, that is definitely a fucking downer.

I can fully relate to where Stassi is coming from in this moment. She’s basically being painted as a crazy bitch, and maybe she is being a bit of a crazy bitch. But who the fuck amongst us isn’t from time to time? The extremely frustrating part is that Stassi has a valid point in that she just wants Beau to acknowledge her in some way, shape or form. She says she wants him to get a tattoo of her name, even though she couldn’t care less about the stupid tattoo. It’s about the gesture of it all. But instead, she turns into the monster, and everyone feels sorry for Beau because he’s being terrorised by said monster. The monster that he decided to marry. The monster that he decided to have kids with. The monster that he’s choosing to stay with. At some point, Beau will need to take some accountability for his actions that lead to these fucked-up situations too. C’mon now.

Stassi is saying to Georgia, "You’re never going to look at Beau and think he’s doing anything wrong." Georgia says, "No, that’s not true," and Beau is all, "No, that’s not the case." We then see Stassi look deep into the camera, out to all of us, and say with her eyes, "Can you fucking believe all of these people are out here trying to gaslight me?" Beau gets frustrated and says he thinks that this BBQ situation is reigniting the fight they had in Italy. Stassi feels some type of way about her friends and family coming at her so hard. She thinks she deserves some grace, considering the fact that she has tried to be the best version of herself for the last five years.

They leave the BBQ, and Stassi is upset that Beau gets the wounded animal treatment every time. Which I totally get. She tells us in her testimonial that, "After that, if the show gets greenlit, that can’t happen again." The producer says, "Buuuuut it did happen again." We then get footage of people all yelling at Stassi that Beau is afraid of her, followed by her having an absolute meltdown. Fun stuff.

We arrive at "CHAPTER II – MOTHERING VS. MOTHERHOOD," which takes place "present day," which is not actually present day for us, but whatever, you get it. We see Stassi getting onto a private jet. She says she does not normally go on PJs. She’s on her way to a work event for Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy and Unwell Network fame.

Stassi has no idea how to act on a private jet, which is another thing I can relate to. Not that I’ve ever been on a private jet. But on the flight we took on Sunday, we paid extra for Air New Zealand’s Skycouch. And honestly, I was like, "This must be what first class is like." Which just goes to show I’ve never been in first class, because I’m sure it’s a lot fucking fancier than a Skycouch. I also had to share the Skycouch with a six-year-old, so it really wasn’t even that comfortable. The only scenario where I can imagine the Skycouch being an asset is if you have it all to yourself. But then it’s like, do you have to pay for the whole row of seats and then the Skycouch fee on top of that? At that point, you’d probably be paying about the same as a first class seat anyway, so really... no point at all.

Anywho, Stassi tells us that she’s saying yes to every opportunity that’s coming her way, and she’s incredibly grateful to have Beau, who can be at home and present with their kids. Over at their house, Beau is trying to kick off a dance party with Hartford and Messer. Hartford isn’t having a bar of it. She’s all, "No Dad, we’re doing costumes. DUH." A producer asks how he feels about being Mr Mom, which is kind of offensive. Like, lots of men stay at home with their kids, don’t they? I dunno.

Over on the PJ, Taylor arrives in a matching trench coat. Taylor, in a testimonial, tells us that when she first met Stassi, she was a lot nicer than Taylor thought she would be. I guess her reputation preceded her. But the psycho still lives inside of her, which she loves. Before they take off, Stassi feels the need to let Taylor know that more plane crashes happen on private jets. To which I would be screaming, "WAITER! MORE CHAMPAGNE FOR THE RIDE, PLEASE."

They arrive in Vegas for the event, and they’re there to interview the Mormon wives. Alex Cooper comes in to chat with Stassi. Stassi has just one question: what part of your life is fucked up because you work so much? Alex says her health is bad, which I guess is why she has a company called Unwell? Alex tells her that she’s happy for Stassi because she’s always been consistent, and that her brand has stayed the same, but she’s grown as a person. She says, "You’re not afraid to be imperfect, which is why people love you." Which is so true. People want authenticity at the end of the day. It’s why I prefer Threads over Instagram. If you’re on both, you get it. Pretty much everyone is unhinged on Threads. I love it.

We see Stassi, Taylor and some of the Mormon wives attend Paris Hilton’s DJ set, then headline Alex Cooper’s event with their interview, before heading to after-drinks with other people from Hulu and Disney. Stassi has a FaceTime with Beau, and her kids are throwing the biggest wobblies ever. Beau is like, "Can I have a minute to talk?" He looks stressed the eff out. And Stassi is like, "In the middle of all of the tantrums, could you find a minute to call the party planner about Halloween?" Which is hilarious.

Before leaving Vegas, Stassi and Taylor meet up with Jessi from Mormon Wives, who is divorcing her gross husband. While I don’t condone cheating, good for her. He seems like a piece of shit, so God bless. Jessi tells Stassi that she has tea for her about Scheana. Scheana Shay from Vanderpump Rules, to be clear. I better be careful about saying her name too much, because she’s like the Candyman of reality TV.

Stassi says she cannot get away from this woman. She has a premonition of her own funeral where Scheana shows up and somehow makes it about herself. Apparently, Scheana told Jessi she’s walking away from Bravo, which I’m almost certain was the other way around, and wanted to know if Jessi had any events coming up. She then told her that Brock, Scheana’s cheating Australian husband, grew up Mormon, so she wonders whether she could be on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. At this point, I feel like Scheana Shay is somewhere filling in paperwork to convert to Mormonism.

Scheana belongs on The Valley. We all know this. She belongs on The Valley, fighting, then going through conflict resolution with Lala, and then telling us about the cheating of it all with Brock. YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE, SCHEANA! Stassi talks to Jessi about how she’s excited to film a show with people she actually loves and cares about. She then says that Katie may be joining the show. Queen Katie Maloney from Vanderpump Rules. Stassi used to be really good friends with Katie, but they had a falling out, and Stassi tells us she ghosted the friendship. Stassi wants to reconnect with Katie and have a conversation about what’s gone down.

We’re back in LA, and it’s the day of Stassi’s Halloween party. Stassi is obsessed with Halloween. She throws a party every year. Stassi then tells us about the second bit of family drama that has gone down on Vanderpump Villa. This happened in Season 3, so I’m not privy to this information and honestly find it a little confusing. Something about Stassi’s sister, Georgi, moving to LA and wanting to stay with Stassi and Beau, which I assume Stassi wasn’t down with. But Georgia, Beau’s sister, is staying with them, and Georgi is staying with Taylor, Stassi’s best friend. I don’t know. I’m confused.

Anyway, Stassi tells Beau that Katie is coming to the Halloween party, and we find out that Beau is not a fan of Katie. I guess because he thought she got too big for her boots and kind of abandoned Stassi when she was cancelled, which it does seem like actually happened. He’s apprehensive about them rekindling their friendship.

BING! We get to "CHAPTER III – GHOSTS OF PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE." We see everyone arriving at the party. The theme is bubonic plague, and Teddy, Taylor’s wife, arrives as The Grinch? Which I find extremely perplexing. Although she is pregnant, so I guess she gets a pass. Taylor arrives as Blake Lively, who she says is the bubonic plague of our time. I’d like to say I could definitely think of a few other people in the US who I would compare to an infectious disease spread by fleas. We see Georgi arrive, and Stassi is fucking pissed. She thinks Georgi looks better than her. She’s gagged at the audacity. Georgi is like, "I win Halloween, bitch."

We then see Katie arrive with her boyfriend. Katie tells us Stassi asked her to be part of the show, which she finds kind of weird because they haven’t spoken in years. Cue a wolf howling at the moon. Katie comes over to Stassi, and they seem awkward as fuck. Stassi is like, "I’m into this satanic shit," referring to their costumes. Well, referring to Katie’s costume. She’s like a cult leader or member or something. Her boyfriend has a Día de los Muertos half candy skull painted on his face, which is not satanic at all. Anyway, Stassi wants to have a one-on-one convo, buuuuut not at the Halloween party. So they’re going to meet up tomorrow to talk.

Later on, Georgi pulls Stassi aside for a chat. She’s written her feelings down in a letter because Stassi has a tendency to bamboozle people in the moment, I guess. She starts reading the letter, and Stassi is calling ChatGPT on this shit, which it turns out she’s correct about. Stassi basically says, "This is definitely a you problem," and then tells her sister not to cry.

As someone with an older sister, I learned pretty early on that my sister didn’t want to hear about my feelings on really any matter. Which I understand. Everyone is going through shit. Just because they’re your blood relative doesn’t mean they deserve the burden of your emotional baggage. So I feel bad for Georgi in this moment, but I also see Stassi’s point. She feels Georgi is playing the victim, which she also has to deal with when it comes to Beau. They haven’t resolved shit, but Stassi says she wants Georgi to come to their house anyway because... family.

The next day we get "CHAPTER IV – NEW STASSI VS. NEW KATIE?" Stassi arrives at The Belmont to meet Katie. Katie arrives and, straight off the bat, she’s like, "Why did you ghost me?" Stassi tells her that she felt like any time she tried to share anything with Katie about her life, it fell on deaf ears, and that all Katie wanted to talk about was Vanderpump Rules. She brings up an instance where she was crying to Katie about postpartum shit, and Katie was scrolling on her phone before saying, "OMG, look how far the sandwich shop has come." Which, if that’s true, is pretty fucking messed up.

Stassi ultimately says she just felt like Katie didn’t care. Katie says she doesn’t remember that instance, and Stassi is like, "Thank you for proving my point." Katie says Vanderpump Rules was her whole life at that time, and that when you’re in it, that is everything to you. Stassi says she loved VPR, and because she didn’t choose to leave, it hurt to hear about it all the time. Then, inexplicably, Scheana Shay gets another mention when Stassi says, "You had your birthday party and you decided to invite Scheana over me." I’m not sure of the timeline on all of this, but Katie and Scheana have had a pretty rocky friendship over the years, so that’s a pretty big "fuck you" to Stassi.

Katie basically says ghosting is not the answer. Whether you thought I could handle the truth or not, you owed it to me to have a conversation. She then says, "You just make your world smaller to the point where, if they didn’t come out of you, if they’re not married to you, if they’re not on your fucking payroll, they don’t get to be in your life." DING! Dark passenger mode activated. LOL. I love the editors of this show. Stassi says in her confessional, "That is the exact fucking reason we need Katie Maloney on this show."

Katie isn’t scared of Stassi. She’s not scared to tell her the truth. Stassi admits she shouldn’t have ghosted Katie. They both get emotional and say they want to be part of each other’s lives. They then have a bitch sesh about how Vanderpump Rules villainised the women and always covered for the men. Stassi says she has mixed feelings towards VPR because it gave her so many opportunities, but it also normalised and rewarded so much darkness. Stassi questions whether she’s being a dumb bitch by coming back to reality TV because, in a way, it’s fucked her over. But it’s also given her so much, and she loves it. Lucky for her, she’s an EP on her own show. Stassi asks Katie if she wants to do the show. Katie says yes. She’s hesitant, but she says yes. They’re both excited by the prospect of being able to do it on their own terms.

And that’s where the episode ends. I’m aware that all of the episodes are available to watch now, but I’ll be watching one a week because, well, I have other shit I need to do.

Anyway, that’s it for today. Thanks for reading!
See ya, wouldn’t wanna bee ya!