Fresh from her run on “The Traitors,” Lisa Rinna held court at a backyard luncheon at her Beverly Hills home on Tuesday to celebrate the release of her latest memoir, “You Better Believe I’m Going to Talk About It.”
Guests included friends, such as fellow “Housewives” Dorit Kemsley, Teddi Mellencamp and Erika Jayne; her co-stars on “The Traitors,” Monét X Change and Maura Higgins, Carmen Electra and comedian Atsuko Okatsuk. Her family, husband Harry Hamlin and daughter Delilah Belle, were also by Rinna’s side.
Rinna, who hosted the lunch with Instyle editor-in-chief Sally Holmes, lived up to her fashionista reputation in a Richard Quinn dress and latex top by Busted.
“I feel it’s part of my job to show women that you can be so much more than an expiration date that they’ve given us as women,” Rinna, 62, told me. “It really is a mindset. If you don’t feel like you have to be older person, then don’t. Have fun!”
The soiree took place just days after Rinna filmed “The Traitors” reunion, where she reportedly had a dust up with her show nemesis Colton Underwood. “It’s silly,” Rinna said. “It’s a game. I never meant any harm…Hopefully, we can all have a kumbaya moment.”
While a Page Six report alleges Underwood stormed out of the reunion taping because of Rinna, she offered her account of what happened. “I didn’t see it myself,” she said. “I saw him leave, but I saw other people leave too, to go to the bathroom and such, but it took a long time for people to come back. That I can share with you.
“But let’s put it on the record, because they probably won’t air it, right?” Rinna continued. “I said, ‘Colton, I have a question for you: What did you mean when you said, “I’m going to take her hostage?”’ That’s all I said. And that spun him out.” (A source who was at the taping of the reunion tells me that Underwood “did not storm out or spin out at any point.”)
Underwood came under fire when he said during a confessional on the show that he wanted to take a Traitor “hostage.” When Rinna wouldn’t accept his offer to protect each other for the rest of the season, he schemed to get her banished.
Rinna, in turn, took to social media and called Underwood a “stalker,” a reference to allegations made against him by his ex-girlfriend Cassie Randolph after they met on “The Bachelor.”
Sadly, some fans took things too far, with Underwood telling Variety’s Emily Longeretta that he received death threats during his time on “The Traitors.” Rinna immediately denounced the toxicity.
“It’s just insane, and that is unnecessary,” she told me. “I do think that’s ridiculous. I’m fine with Colton. I think Colton is also fine with me.”
However, Rinna pointed out, “He did unfollow me on Instagram. So that is the drama. I’m like, ‘Really? somebody unfollowed me like a boyfriend, a girlfriend?’”
When asked for a comment, a representative for Underwood said, “Lisa has always been privately kind to Colton, which makes some of her public behavior all the more confusing — it doesn’t match their private communications, and it seems like she’s trying to manufacture conflict that doesn’t exist. Colton feels incredibly grateful for the overwhelming support he’s received from the cast.”
Expect more tea to be spilled when Rinna is a guest on “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen” for the first time in four years on Feb. 25. She and Cohen have feuded over the Bravo host sharing their private text messages in his book 2023 book, “The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up.”
She and Cohen did have a chance to catch up when he hosted the reunion of “The Traitors.”
“I sat next to him at the reunion, so we chatted,” Rinna said. “He knows I threw his book in the fireplace and all of that. It’s all out there. It’s all cool.”
