Katie Maloney on Her Reality TV Return, Ariana Madix House of Stassi Cameo

Katie Maloney wasn’t rushing back to reality television after Vanderpump Rules aired its last season with the original cast in 2024. But then, Stassi Schroeder called. 

Longtime friends who starred alongside one another throughout the golden years of the Emmy-nominated Bravo series, Schroeder invited Maloney to appear on her new Hulu series House of Stassi after the core cast had been assembled. 

It’s a topic discussed on the new series, which dropped on the streamer on July 29. During their first onscreen sit-down, a first meeting after a fallout a few years back, at the Belmont (an obvious Vanderpump Rules callback), Maloney gives it to Schroeder straight. 

“You just make your world smaller and smaller and smaller to the point where it’s like if, I don’t know, they didn’t come out of you or they’re not married to you or they’re not on your fucking payroll, they don’t get to be in your life,” Maloney told her friend, cut to a scene of Schroeder, who is an executive producer, uttering, “Damn, this bitch is good. And that’s the type of truth-telling we need on reality TV. I need her to do this show.” 

Maloney tells The Hollywood Reporter that she wouldn’t have signed up for another reality TV show if it weren’t for “the people that are involved.” She adds, “Knowing Stassi’s history with reality TV and her perspective on it, how she wanted to navigate doing the show was something that I really aligned with.”

“Especially coming off of a show like Vanderpump Rules, which was very successful for a long time, but really did kind of, at the end, take a toll on me,” Maloney says, continuing, “I just knew that if I was going to return, it would have to be for something that felt very different, and that absolutely was the case. I just really trusted the producers and the whole production team, and it just was exciting.”

Maloney knew the series was in the works (it was first announced in August 2024, three months before Bravo revealed it was rebooting Vanderpump Rules), but “never considered [joining the cast] to be an option for a number of reasons.”

“I didn’t know where they were in the process,” Maloney explains, adding that she quickly learned they hadn’t started shooting for House of Stassi, and things fell into place. 

“I don’t know. There was just something that, maybe just innately in my gut, told me like, this is the time,” she says. 

A seasoned reality star, Maloney was “cautious” about joining a new show and the cycle that emerges while starring on an active series. “That’s a lot of what I’ve been enjoying away from reality TV, out of the public eye and constant attention,” she says, “but at the same time, I’m pretty used to this, so I have a pretty good handle on it.” 

She also admits she wasn’t eager to jump at other reality TV experiences after Vanderpump Rules ended. “Obviously, the same production team that worked on Vanderpump Rules worked on The Valley, and I, just through casual conversations, have made it clear that that was not something I’d ever be interested in. But I didn’t really have the interest for a while in participating in reality TV.” 

Maloney worked with Bravo for over a decade; she was one of three original cast members to remain on Vanderpump Rules for its 11-season tenure before the network rebooted the show. House of Stassi ushers her onto a new network on Hulu and Freeform, which Disney backs.

“I’m trying to not compare it constantly,” Maloney says when asked about the differences in starring on a new network. “It’s hard because, like with anything, that’s sort of my only frame of reference. But I’m trying to just treat it like it’s something entirely new that I’ve never been a part of.” 

Maloney did bring one part of her Vanderpump past over to House of Stassi: an Ariana Madix cameo. “She without hesitation agreed to do it,” Maloney says, explaining that she told Madix she wanted to film at their West Hollywood sandwich shop Something About Her.

“I was never going to press [Ariana] or ask her to be part of it beyond that, but I was just happy that she was so supportive,” she says. “Also, we worked so hard to get our sandwich shop open, so it was important that for the first time us filming there, that she was there for that.”

On the new series, some House of Stassi castmembers raised their quarrels with Maloney joining their cast. She admits she did not know people like Kristina Kelly and Taylor Strecker had such strong hesitations about her being back around their friend group.

“Not prior to going into it. Obviously, I found out quickly that some people had issues,” she says. One comment she was not given a heads up about before the show dropped came from Schroeder’s husband Beau Clark, who said he hoped Schroeder reconnecting with Maloney wouldn’t shift his wife’s behavior.

“The only [comment] I had no idea that was said was Beau’s reaction. And obviously Stassi and I having our friendship break that we had, that’s his wife, he’s gonna have her back, but he was pretty passionate in his feelings about me,” Maloney says. “That one stung a little bit too because I’ve always loved Beau and really gotten along with him, so kind of sucked to hear.” 

A House of Stassi moment of Maloney’s that stuck out was a confessional interview before the season’s disastrous Queen Mary finale dinner party, where Schroeder and Clark’s friends and family brought up concerns about their marriage. “I know how common affairs are and how they happen, and I’ve experienced the beginning stages of it,” she said on the show, sharing her experience of emotional abandonment in her marriage and how she found connection outside of that relationship.

Some viewers thought Maloney was speaking about Tom Schwartz’s infidelities in their former marriage, but Maloney confirms she “was talking about myself,” and that “not that many people have caught onto” her admission in the finale episode. 

“I’ve seen it happen over and over too in people’s lives that I know. If you stop and think about it, five times out of five times, when someone ends their marriage or long-term relationship, the common thing that’s said at the end is, ‘I felt like we were roommates,’” she says. “And that’s when you feel emotional abandonment, and that’s when, and I’m speaking from my perspective on things and other people’s perspectives, but I think that it’s so common.”

“It wasn’t necessarily like a singular person or anything,” Maloney adds. “I just was aware so clearly of where I stood emotionally within my marriage and relationship, and some people choose to explore that well out without exiting the relationship armors, because that’s a more difficult thing to do. I recognized that that was my time.” 

Moving forward with a potential second season of House of Stassi, Maloney says she’d be on board: “I think that would be a lot of fun. I’d love to.” As for what to expect from her, she’d want to “repair and build some of the fractures in the relationships that I have,” while also continuing to grow her friendship with Schroeder.

“[I want to] grow my relationship with Stassi from where we are now in this season of life that’s so different than the one that we met each other in,” Maloney says. “I just am excited to see where that goes and takes us.” 

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Season one of House of Stassi is now streaming on Hulu.