It’s the end of an era in West Hollywood. Bravo announced this morning that long-running reality series Vanderpump Rules will return for a 12th season, but with an entirely new cast (excepting restauranteur and former Real Housewife Lisa Vanderpump). While the show initially chronicled the lives of twentysomethings working in Vanderpump’s SUR restaurant, it evolved into following their professional ambitions as they grew more famous. Casting information and the timeline for the new season is still up in the air, but presumably, they want to refocus the show on some new SUR-vers for the next iteration.
“What a thrill it is to build on the legacy of this series by doing it all over again,” executive producer Alex Baskin said, per Us Weekly. “With profound appreciation for the original group and their iconic run, we can’t wait for the audience to see a dynamic new group of co-workers and friends make their way through life together.”
This news is not wholly surprising, as the show has been on the precipice of cancellation for a handful of seasons. Several long-running cast members either quit or were ousted in 2020 for racist behavior. In 2023, the so-called “Scandoval”—when Tom Sandoval cheated on his partner and co-star Ariana Madix with fellow cast member Rachel Leviss—earned the show the most attention ever in its history, but effectively alienated portions of the cast from each other. By the end of the eleventh season earlier this year, it was clear that some people simply did not want to film the show any longer.
Bravo has already been fiddling with reboots of some of its other long-running reality TV shows. In 2023, The Real Housewives Of New York returned with an all-new cast following its own behind-the-scenes racism scandal and accusations of improper behavior from the network by former cast members Bethenny Frankel and Leah McSweeney. The success of that reboot is dubious; Frankel herself has regularly gone on TikTok (as is her wont) to criticize the quality of the show and highlight fan complaints.
There is one ray of hope for the axed Pump Rules cast: The Valley, Bravo’s VPR spin-off that functions as the farm upstate for aging millennial reality stars. Former VPR cast members Jax Taylor and Kristen Doute already joined the series for its first season this year, so it stands to reason that we might see a few more of these newly unemployed SUR-vers end up on the other side of the hills.
