In the latest of a string of lawsuits indicating serious trouble in Bravoland, former Vanderpump Rules cast member Faith Stowers is accusing NBCUniversal of racial harassment, according to a complaint filed on Friday.
Stowers, who appeared in seasons 4 and 5 of the reality series offshoot of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, claims in the suit that castmate Lala Kent held a knife to her neck and threatened to “cut a bitch” during the filming of Vanderpump Rules, which follows the staff of Housewives star Lisa Vanderpump’s Los Angeles restaurant, SUR.
Vanderpump herself is named in the complaint from Stowers, who alleges that the reality TV star threatened to have her removed from her namesake show if Stowers couldn’t continue to work alongside her alleged assailant. The show’s executive producer also discouraged her from reporting the incident with Kent to local police, Stowers claims in the filing.
Stowers claims in the suit that she was paid $5,000 to appear in season 4 of Vanderpump Rules and demoted to “volunteer” for season 5.
The ensemble castmember also alleges that she was subjected to regular racial slurs and mocked on set for her “nappy hair.” Her former Vanderpump players Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute allegedly said she was “a serial criminal who had been drugging and robbing men throughout Los Angeles”; the two also accused her of going AWOL from the military, she claims in the suit. Schroeder and Doute were fired from the show after Stowers told an Instagram Live audience about these alleged incidents in the summer of 2020.
“[This was] an astonishingly cynical act of performative allyship,” Stowers says of NBCUniversal’s dismissal of her two castmates, which came swiftly as the nation was reckoning with its systemic racial injustices in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
Notably, Stowers has retained legal representation by Bryan Freedman and Marc Geragos, the same attorneys that worked for former Housewives star Bethenny Frankel, The Real Housewives of New York star turned CEO who has called for a “reality reckoning” to end the exploitation of cast members’ lives and safety for network ratings and profit.
In a statement sent to The Hollywood Reporter on Friday, the law firm Freedmam, Taitelman and Cooley called out NBCUniversal and the production house behind Vanderpump Rules various infractions it says they’ve committed against hired talent.
“NBC and Evolution clearly believe that workplace safety rules, employment laws, and basic decency do not apply to those in reality TV. Vicious assaults, racist harassment, and impugning the service of veterans are apparently acceptable to NBC and Evolution for the sake of ratings. Faith did not know what kind of cesspool she had found herself in and reported this unlawful behavior to her superiors. In response, she was demoted to ‘volunteer’ and stripped of her already meager compensation,” the firm wrote.
NBCUniversal did not immediately reply to an email from THR seeking comment on the case and accusations.