Kim Richards Dishes On Yolanda’s Illness, Her Drunken Arrest & Slams Lisa Rinna

Tonight on a special Watch What Happens Live, Andy Cohen interviews Kim Richards in a special one-on-one episode. Kim looks healthy and refreshed, which makes me wonder if she’s done a little facial rejuvenation. Either way, she looks better than she has in a very long time. Andy opens by offering his condolences for the loss of Kim’s ex-husband, Monty. Kim talks about maintaining her sobriety after his death.

“After Monty passed…I was a little nervous, but my family and I, we’re all sticking really close together. He’s our angel…”

And how is Kim’s ongoing sobriety?

“I’m in recovery. I decided, the last time I shared my recovery with the world, that it became no longer mine. I went public with my recovery…and there was too much focus on myself….I do share it with my children… But for the public, I’ve decided it’s really not their business.”

Andy mentions that being on the show seemed to help keep Kim in check before. Why has that changed?

“I felt like before when I got sober…it was thousands and thousands of little sponsees…and it was a wonderful thing… There’s a clause in the twelve traditions…that’s it’s really for anonymity.”

I imagine it’s hard to fall when millions of eyes are watching. And even though Kim has been gone this season from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, she hasn’t been forgotten. Her name has been dropped more times than Brandi Glanville’s panties. Lisa Rinna called Kim dangerous and a rabid dog, even feeling somewhat responsible for Kim’s recent troubles. Rinna feels she was Kim’s “mirror”.

So how does Kim feel when the other Housewives use her name in vain?

“I just feel like why do they have to discuss me on the show, when I was clearly not a part of it? I do feel like Lisa [Vanderpump] cares…I don’t feel like it needed to be done there…”

“I’ve met Ericka [Girardi] and Kathryn [Edwards]. I really like these girls. I think they’re both so genuine…”

While Kim claims she hasn’t seen much of the show this season, she just so happened to catch one snippet. And it was the one in which Rinna called Kim “a vicious, vile dog” and “dangerous”.

“Who’s the dangerous one in this situation?” Kim demanded of Andy.

Kyle has tried to shut down all talk of Kim this season, with no success.

“She’s protecting me. I’d have appreciated it if no one spoke about me… All these things that happened were a year ago. This is a whole new moment for me.”

But Kim’s not completely out of the picture. She returned last week for a heart-to-heart with Kyle. They talked about repairing their relationship.

“It was very difficult… The hurt won’t ever really go away, but there were certain things that she had done towards me, that I have to personally put aside if I want to move forward…She called and reached out to me and I just wasn’t ready… I missed her…I need to put those away to move forward.”

I don’t think it’s that easy, though. Kim and Kyle have so much dysfunctional shit between them, not to mention their unusual past as childhood stars. It seems these ladies learned from their mom, Big Kathy, to slap a Band-Aid over the emotional wounds. That doesn’t appear to have worked, and “moving on” seems to be another way of shoving all that anger, bitterness and pain back under the carpet.

And though we all want to know why Kim shoplifted a full basket of items from Target, that one is going to remain a mystery.

“It’s a legal issue and I can’t discuss that. Sorry.”

Next, we get into Kim’s arrest at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She starts by saying:

“I drank that night. No excuses. When you’re working the program, which I wasn’t doing at the time…I had a son who wasn’t well…Monty was battling cancer… not an excuse, but I stopped focusing on myself…and going to meetings…and then the stuff on the show.”

For someone who claims she has no excuses, that seems like quite a laundry list. Then Kim turns the blame on Rinna:

“…accused me of using and alcohol… I was sober for going on 3 ½ years…and then the pain pill…which I owned, I took it.”

It bothers me that Kim still can’t admit that when she took pills, she broke her sobriety. Once again, she tries to gloss over it. But back to the hotel arrest.

“…Two weeks before the hotel…all the stuff was coming up in the tabloids ‘she’s not sober’ so I had a glass of wine with a friend. Just a glass of wine at home.”

Again, not sober. Kim then tells this disjointed tale.

“Almost two weeks later I had been to visit my son, and then I went to Brook’s house and stayed at her house and I watched the reunion. I had a drink at her house. I felt horribly guilty and I needed to go home. I’d just had the drink. She was sleeping. She lives a block and half from the hotel… I can’t drink and drive, what have I done? So I pulled into the hotel… We had boycotted the hotel because the Sultan of Brunei had done the whole thing where he stones gay people, so when I went in, nobody knew me there. He as like ‘oh we’re closed’ and I was going to sit in my booth. It was my booth. ‘Please, I’m staying, I’m staying.’ I don’t want to drive, I’m scared. He said ‘if you don’t leave, I’m calling the police.’ I thought he was joking.”

Kim, you’re only as sick as your secrets. And there are a lot of buried secrets in that story.

Andy wants to know if that was Kim’s rock bottom moment.

“You know, honestly, I was truthfully, I was almost relieved it happened. I needed a break. I was exhausted mentally and physically…I felt I couldn’t handle any more. My therapist was like ‘go to a meeting…come and see me, come to me every day.’ But I was like, I needed to go for thirty days. I needed a break. They were all, ‘You don’t need to do that. It’s a drink. You had a drink.’ But I needed a break.”

Okay, this woman has been ill and lost her ex-husband, so I don’t want to beat her up, because it’s mean. But I don’t believe for a minute her family and therapist didn’t want her in rehab. Not. For. A. Minute.

Kim has maintained her friendships with Yolanda Hadid and Brandi, so Kim’s aware that the other women have been questioning Yolanda’s health claims. 

“I watched my friend suffer for years now. She’s weak, she’s in pain, she’s suffered clearly. And once again, I watch one person continue to bring up someone else’s stuff, somebody else’s pain, something she knows nothing about…and she keeps brining up other people’s things. And I just…it’s horrible.”

Brandi was seen filming in an “It’s Not Fun Being Sober” T-shirt. Did Kim take offense?

“Brandi doesn’t like to be sober, so that’s okay.”

But, Andy pressed, is it hard having someone like Brandi around who’s constantly drinking? Kim immediately started defending her friend.

“She’s not constantly drinking. She likes to drink when she goes out… When we’re together she doesn’t drink…when socially we got out, all the girls drink. So why is bad for Brandi, but it’s not bad for all the other girls….because they all drink… There’s only one bad friend in the group. Why is Brandi the bad friend when they all have wine?”

A caller asked if Kim could say anything to Rinna, what would it be?

“I don’t know…every time I’ve tried to talk to her, it’s dangerous… I did try to speak with her and ask her why she has it out for me. I don’t get it. It’s almost two years since I’ve seen her…and I’m a vicious, vile dog and I’m crazy…and [she’s] scared of me? I don’t get that.”

As for keeping up with the public, Kim says:

“I took a break from social media and TV and cameras to focus on me.”

But she did make an exception by filming the Mother/Daughter Experiment on Lifetime with her daughter, Kimberly. Andy wondered why Kim agreed to do it.

“Because it’s a mother daughter show. Two weeks with Kimberly. You’re going to build tables…this is going to be so much fun.”

Turns out, it wasn’t that much fun.

I wish Kim well in her sobriety and her life. It’s been a hard, frustrating ride, watching her struggle with her issues. But I’m sure it’s been much tougher to live through them.

So what do you think? Was Kim telling the truth or is she still trying to protect her image, like Big Kathy taught her to do?

 

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