Andy Cohen Says the Back Half of ‘Pump Rules’ Season 11 ‘Takes Off’: ‘Can’t Believe How Good It Was’
Andy Cohen swears the last half of Vanderpump Rules season 11 is completely binge-worthy.
“Y’all, I have just landed in Los Angeles,” Cohen said via Instagram Story on Friday, March 15. “I’m here to shoot the Vanderpump Rules reunion. I have just binged the last seven episodes of the season. I can’t believe how good it was. And I know that y’all maybe are like, ‘Oh he’s just hyping his stuff,’ whatever. It’s not my show. I’m not a producer on it. That’s why I didn’t know anything that happened, I just watched it as a viewer. It is so good.”
He continued, “It takes off in a significant way. Kudos to the brilliant team, and what a finale. And what a reunion it will be. I’m so excited. Again, not my show, this is not a paid advertisement. Nobody asked me to make this post. It’s real good.”
Originally shared by Cohen via his Instagram Story, the video was reposted to X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, which prompted a response from Tom Schwartz. “2nd half is so solid,” he replied in a subsequent tweet, confirming Cohen’s excitement. “One of my favorite seasons yet. Aside from cringing at myself.”
2nd half is so solid ?? one of my favorite seasons yet. Aside from cringing at myself
— tom schwartz (@twschwa) March 15, 2024
Cohen went on to discuss the remaining episodes of season 11, as well as the reunion, on the Monday, March 18, episode of SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live.
“I watched seven episodes of Vanderpump Rules in 24 hours. The remaining seven in the season,” Cohen told co-host John Hill. “I think that people felt that it was off. I think that, at the start, people were super interested and then they were like, ‘Oh, I don't know. I don't want to talk about this. I don't know if I want this redemption thing. I don't know how I feel about it.’ It's really good.”
Cohen went on to explain that both Lala Kent and Scheana Shay’s husband, Brock Davies, emerge as the “voice[s] of reason” for this season of Vanderpump Rules. “The other one who I love to watch and who I think is emerging as a real potential player in this universe, Ally Lewber, James Kennedy's girlfriend,” Cohen added.
“Nothing could be as heated as last year, but a lot of the topics were incredibly intense and electric," he said. "They were all calmly discussed, which I really appreciated it. It was not, of course, there were flare-ups and screaming, but it was not, especially given last year, sitting in that space.”
It might be hard to beat season 10’s record-breaking ratings in the aftermath of Tom Sandoval and Rachel “Raquel” Leviss’ cheating scandal, which rocked the Bravo landscape at the time the news broke. Us Weekly confirmed in March 2023 that Sandoval and Ariana Madix had ended their nearly decade-long relationship due to his infidelity.
Thanks to the viewership generated by “Scandoval,” season 10 broke viewership records for Bravo and Peacock, hitting 11.4 million average viewers as of June 2023, Variety reported at the time. The first reunion episode alone reached 4.6 million viewers, making it not only the most-viewed Vanderpump episode of all time but the most-watched episode of any Bravo series in the past decade.
Comparatively, the season 11 premiere episode, “Notes on a Scandal,” brought in a large audience of 3.2 million viewers, per The Hollywood Reporter.
The overall success of season 10 led to substantial paydays for several cast members, with some even negotiating with Bravo for higher salaries. Madix, for her part, reportedly earned over $1 million in sponsorship deals following Scandoval. She also joined season 32 of Dancing With the Stars and is currently starring as Roxie Hart on Broadway’s Chicago.
Every Cheating Accusation That Rocked ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Over the Years
Sandoval previously accused some of his coworkers of benefiting from the scandal. “Fellow cast members are asking me all these questions, but you don’t want to know because you care about Ariana,” Sandoval said in an April 2023 episode of the “Howie Mandel Does Stuff” podcast. “You want to know so you have more content for your podcast. It is f—king disgusting to me. It is so gross. You are not someone who gives a flying f—k about Ariana. You are doing this for your own personal gain.”
Bravo recently confirmed the seating chart for the season 11 reunion, which includes Cohen, Shay, Davies, Madix, Sandoval, and Schwartz, as well as Lisa Vanderpump, Katie Maloney, and James Kennedy. Newcomers Jo Wenberg and Ally Lewber are also set to appear.
