Lisa Vanderpump Says The New ‘Pump Rules’ Cast Members "Keep Things Exciting"

The original cast members on Vanderpump Rules are entering a new stage in their lives. They’re having expensive, lavish destination weddings, buying nearly identical $2 million dollar houses in the Valley, and almost none of them work at SUR anymore. But while the show started out following employees at her restaurant, Lisa Vanderpump isn’t worried that the Vanderpump Rules cast no longer serves goat cheese balls or shakes up Pump-tinis on the regular. Mostly, she’s happy to see her employees, and the show, evolve, thanks in large part to the new cast members on Pump Rules Season 8 — cast members who still do need to fight for more hours in order to pay their bills and aren’t too bougie to eat a shift meal next to a dumpster yet.

"Of course, we have to see them grow up, we have to," Vanderpump tells me of the original crew at the first ever BravoCon in New York City on Nov. 16. "Otherwise it’d be too frustrating." She adds with a laugh that it’s been "frustrating enough" watching them all (very slowly) go through the growing pains of even getting to this point.

As entertaining as it is, watching the same thirty-somethings repeatedly cheat on their partners, spread rumors about their friends. party themselves into oblivion, and casually shoplift forever eventually just becomes, well, sad. But it’s also kind of offensive to assume that fans will continue, no-questions-asked, to watch this clique pretend to work at a lunch shift at SUR when they are clearly making reality TV money. (Not to mention securing book deals, making paid sponsorship appearances, and just generally being celebrities.)

The Season 8 premiere, which screened at BravoCon following a panel with the cast at an at-capacity Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan, brings more authenticity to the series in this regard. While the episode is full of plenty of the same shenanigans fans are used to — Scheana Marie shamelessly flirting with the new guys, Kristen Doute dealing with her difficult then-boyfriend Brian Carter — most of the action revolves around several key cast members moving into expensive new homes. Only two people from the original cast — Scheana and Jax Taylor — still technically supposed to be working at SUR.

Enter Dayna Kathan, Max Boyes, and Brett Caprioni, who all work at either SUR or TomTom and are ready to stir the pot. Three new cast members brings the ensemble to a total of 19 people this season, as supervising producer Bill Langworthy noted at the "The Real Tea with Bravo Producers" panel at BravoCon. But that doesn’t mean that the original cast has outgrown Pump Rules or will start to spinoff into more "adult" reality programming, although watching Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval bicker over bathroom tiles is not a bad B-plot. very well be entertaining. Simply, just because they’re buying homes in the Valley doesn’t mean the OGs are going anywhere.

"They’re still very much part of Vanderpump Rules," she says of the cast who kicked off the show nearly seven years ago. "I think there’s still enough cohesion and ties to SUR." She points to the fact that, in addition to Marie and Taylor, James Kennedy DJs at SUR and his hilariously controversial girlfriend, Raquel Leviss, is now a server. Tom Schwartz and Sandoval also serve as a big part of the connective tissue as they’re helping run the show at their own restaurant. "Right now it works. I’d say it works very well," Vanderpump adds.

Clearly, though, the new faces were brought in to keep things close to SUR and to stir up some pre-homeowner Pump Rules drama. Regarding the five brand new cast members, Vanderpump explains, "It’s nice to have new blood, because it keeps things exciting. It keeps things moving." It’s also only natural, because the restaurant — being an actual, functioning restaurant — does hire new employees. "It would be kind of ridiculous, really, to cut people out when they’re there and they’re integrated with the cast and each other and they have their own issues," she says. Vanderpump adds that "not everybody wants to film," so finding employees who do their sidework and are also "willing and able" to be on camera is too good of an opportunity to pass up.

At this point, one of just a few things can happen for the future of Vanderpump Rules: The older cast members are phased out as new ones join, or we continue watching the original gang’s lives unfold until they’re throwing lavish birthday parties for their kids in those big yards they all have now. Or, they’ll just be passing out on said lawns as opposed to each other’s floor. The best option is going to differ from Pump Rules fan to Pump Rules fan. Either way, it’s hard to imagine exactly when or how Vanderpump Rules will end, and it’s just as difficult for Vanderpump.

"I remember after the first season of Housewieves, on the second season I said, ‘Oh, that’s it. I think I’ll do something else now.’ I didn’t imagine I’d do 400 episodes of reality television, so who knows. I don’t think Bravo ever envisaged that it would go for eight seasons, but if you’ve got something that works, you just keep it going, don’t you?" Then, she adds in her very LVP way, "But it’ll be a sad day, and, of course, it will come to an end at some point. Hey, what am I going to do, walk in through those doors and the title’s on a Zimmer frame? I mean, come on. It’d be Vanderpump Drools, not Vanderpump Rules."

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