Dorit Kemsley thinks it’s a “stretch” that her not defending Teddi Mellencamp had anything to do with her drama with estranged friend Kyle Richards.
In a recent episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, viewers witnessed a clash between Dorit, 48, and Kyle, 55, as their friendship took a dramatic turn. The tension arose when Kyle expressed her disappointment in Dorit for not defending former Housewife Teddi from a mean comment made at BravoCon the previous year.
Following the episode, Dorit shared her perspective on the RHOBH After Show. She felt that Kyle was reaching for reasons to be upset with her, especially regarding the situation with Teddi. Dorit expressed her confusion to new Housewife Bozoma Saint John about Kyle’s sudden change in behavior, particularly when Kyle started bonding more with Morgan Wade during the filming of season 13.
Dorit elaborated that their friendship had evolved to a point where she felt left out, and Kyle’s lack of communication added to the strain. From Dorit’s viewpoint, the issue went deeper than just standing up for Teddi at BravoCon, as it seemed like Kyle was using it as a justification for their rift, which Dorit found unreasonable given the circumstances.
In her own conversation with Erika Jayne, Kyle, 55, said, “That says a lot about her character that she didn’t want to defend Teddi at all, who, we know that they’re friends.”
“I still consider her a close friend of mine,” Kyle told Erika. “But like I said, you put yourself in a category of not being a close friend of mine by doing and saying those things.”
For her part, Erika, 53, said she, too, felt Kyle wasn’t necessarily mad at Dorit because of Teddi — but because Dorit allegedly commented on her crying onstage at BravoCon while talking about her marriage. (“And you later said to certain people that I turned the tears on for attention,” Kyle confronted Dorit on Wednesday’s RHOBH episode.)
The Pretty Mess author said she felt Kyle was “reaching” by attributing her friendship troubles with Dorit to her not defending Teddi.
“When I found what you said about her saying things outside … I was like, ‘Oh, that’s why you’re mad.’ And that, to me, was too much for you.”
In June, Kyle told Us Weekly that things between her and Dorit were “not good” as they filmed the latest season.
But in November, the Halloween Ends star told Us she hoped for future reconciliation with Dorit. “I think that if you’ve ever cared about somebody that much, I think there’s always room for repair, assuming they haven’t done something horrendous to each other,” Kyle said. “I think there’s always a way back.”
Kyle and Dorit had been close friends for the bulk of their joint RHOBH tenure, however, by the end of season 13, it was revealed that the Bravo stars were not on speaking terms.
“I came into this season knowing that we were not in a good place. But I thought, ‘We’re both going through hard times. This is when we should be leaning on each other,’” Kyle explained, referring to their respective separations from husbands Mauricio Umansky and Paul “PK” Kemsley. “I tried that approach, and it wasn’t working. I think that was a lot of my frustration, too.”
Dorit, meanwhile, told Us in November that her and Kyle’s respective splits from their husbands hadn’t brought them closer.
“I did feel very abandoned by Kyle,” Dorit said. “There were a lot of things that were left unsaid from the reunion, and I was struggling with that because I really care about her and I considered her like family. But I can’t say that and mean it and not feel it and not feel like it’s reciprocated. There were a lot of things over a sustained period of time that led me to feel that way.”
She continued, “I felt like in order to truly be able to mend fences, to be able to come together, to be able to rectify whatever issues we were having, I wanted to have very honest conversations where we were both able to put real things on the table and say, ‘OK, this doesn’t feel right. This is not what friends do. What has been going on the last two years? Because it’s very different to the friendship that we used to have.’”
