Lisa Vanderpump has seemingly shaded Lisa Rinna on Twitter following her exit from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills after eight drama-filled seasons. “Ding dong,” the OG RHOBH housewife, 62, tweeted on Thursday, Jan. 5. Fans immediately took her two words as a reference to the iconic song, “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead”, from The Wizard of Oz. If that’s true, Vanderpump is referring to Rinna, 59, as a wicked witch.
Ding dong.
— Lisa Vanderpump (@LisaVanderpump) January 6, 2023
Vanderpump was on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for the first nine seasons, while Rinna was added to the cast for the fifth season. They started butting heads during the sixth season of RHOBH, but their issues boiled to a breaking point during Season 9 when a rumor leaked that castmate Dorit Kemsley gave the dog she adopted from Vanderpumps’ foundation, Vanderpump Dogs, away instead of returning it to the shelter. A former employee of Vanderpump Dogs, John Blizzard, claimed the dog ended up at a kill shelter. When trying to get to the bottom of how the information hit the tabloids, Rinna, housewife Teddi Mellencamp, and John concluded that Vanderpump is the one who leaked the information. The scandal became known as “puppygate”.
Vanderpump, of course, denied that she had any involvement in the leaked doggy news. However, Kyle Richards, one of her best friends on the show at the time, even admitted she wasn’t sure if she was innocent. Vanderpump later received some harsh backlash after whispers that she was piloting a show focused around her foundation, which debuted as Vanderpump Dogs in 2021, was in the works. Rinna made her dismay clear and even said she should get paid for the creation of the show because she felt she helped it come to fruition.
“I’m a hustler. I make no bones about that. I think you get paid for what you do. So my feeling is, if we indeed are servicing a spinoff, we should be paid for it,” she wrote on her Instagram Story in March 2019, per PEOPLE. “I am so happy for all of us to use this platform for makeup lines, bathing suit lines, network TV shows, restaurants, [charities], clothing lines, fitness empires, you name it. I support these women, 100 percent.”
“But if you are going to use our services without telling us — that we are playing out a storyline to launch a pilot for a new show and you don’t compensate us extra for that — yeah, I’m a hustler,” she continued. “I get paid for what I do. So, if this indeed becomes another show, my lawyer will be calling.”
The drama eventually became too much for Vanderpump, and she quit the show.
Now, the tables have turned, and Rinna has quit RHOBH after her character was routinely questioned during Season 12 and at its dramatic reunion. In fact, Kathy Hilton, 63, even accused Rinna of bullying Vanderpump off the show, as seen in the below clip. “You fight with everybody,” she slammed. “What you did to my sister, and you drove Lisa Vanderpump off the show? I mean, the list can go on and on.” She later added, “You are the biggest bully in Hollywood, and everyone knows it.”
The singular best moment of 2022, I’m afraid. #RHOBH pic.twitter.com/JBGWajvpGM
— HOUSEWIVES FANATIC (@hwivesfanatic) December 31, 2022
Lisa announced her departure from RHOBH on Jan. 5 via a statement to PEOPLE. “This is the longest job I have held in my 35 year career and I am grateful to everyone at Bravo and all those involved in the series,” she said. “It has been a fun eight-year run and I am excited for what is to come!” The outlet added that “she and Bravo mutually decided that she would not return to RHOBH.”