Kim Richards Says She Started Drinking After ‘Disorienting’ First Season Of ‘RHOBH!’

Kim Richards, star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills has battled alcoholism for nearly her entire adult life, but says this time her recovery “feels different.”

The one-year anniversary of the drunken scandal at the Beverly Hills Hotel is approaching and Richards spoke to People magazine, “felt terrible for my children” after her arrest at the hotel and her subsequent arrest for shoplifting. “That was the thing that bothered me most. I cried because I hurt my kids.”

By 2010, Kim insisted she had been sober for four years when her sister, Kyle Richards, approached her about a new reality TV show, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Cameras documenting her whereabouts and conversations were “a little disorienting” for Kim. “Then the drama started, and there was fighting and traveling, and I got overwhelmed,” she told the magazine.

Currently Richards is starring in the Mother/Daughter Experiment: Celebrity Edition on Lifetime and so far has only wanted to quit the show once during the cemetery experiment. She successfully watched her daughter, Kimberly Jackson, give her final words to Kim’s gravestone. Back at the house, though, Kim wanted to leave and blamed her daughter for airing the Richards’ dirty laundry.

Her children are, Brooke, 30, Whitney, 26, Chad, 24, and Kimberly, 20, and Richards is now aware of the effect this turbulent time of being in and out of rehab and losing Monte, her ex-husband and best friend who died in January, had on her kids, Kim explained.

“Sometimes I put my arms around them and I say, ‘I love you, I’m so sorry.’ I know they worried about me.”

On theThe Mother/Daughter Experiment: Celebrity Edition  show, the dynamic between Kim and Kimberly is the parent/role reversal. Kimberly said, “My mom is my best friend. Watching her go through a hard time and not being able to rely on her, it was so scary for me.”

Daughter Brook is grateful things happened the way they did, realizing it could have been worse.

“I’m glad it happened when it did,” Brooke says. “It got her strong for [when my father, Monty] did pass away. Maybe if it hadn’t happened, things would have gotten really bad. But she went through rehab and she got stronger than ever.”

Kimberly says that now life for everyone has settled down. “Things were so crazy last year. There were so many things going on at one time. Everything has come to a calm. Things have never felt better.”

In the meantime, Kim is adhering to the one-day-at-a-time schedule.

“There are no guarantees,” Kim acknowledges. “I’ve made mistakes, but I keep trying. I’ve never done anything intentionally to hurt my children. And I hope, for their sake and for the sake of one day my beautiful grandchildren who will come, that this is it.”

 

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