Photograph: Gilbert Flores/Selection by way of Getty Photographs
At any time when information breaks out in actuality TV land, one meme query all the time pops up: “However how is that this affecting Scheana Shay?” On Vanderpump Guidelines, Shay had a present for centering herself in any drama. Only one instance: When Tom Sandoval punched Jax Taylor, Shay sobbed to Lisa Vanderpump that she had been knocked over within the scuffle.
We joke, however Shay has lived so many lives that she will’t assist however be related in so many conversations. From being the face of a labor motion towards Hooters as a teen to filming on The Hills years earlier than her personal actuality TV breakthrough on Vanderpump Guidelines to partying with Paris Hilton at Les Deux and relationship John Mayer, Scheana Shay has wormed her method into each potential web site of 2000s nostalgia.
Shay’s new memoir, My Good Facet, takes us from her childhood in Azusa, California, all the way in which to Scandoval and the affair that hit even nearer to dwelling. Shay’s husband, Brock Davies, confessed to having an affair a couple of month after Tom Sandoval was outed for dishonest on Ariana Madix with Madix and Shay’s finest buddy, Rachel Leviss. Shay addresses the affair for the primary time in her memoir, and the reveal rapidly went viral. She had “blended feelings,” she says, about sharing this secret with the world.
However she’s grateful to have the ability to inform the story on her personal phrases, relatively than mediated by producers and editors. As one in every of actuality TV’s so-called self-producers, Shay has discovered how little management you actually have over the general public’s thought of you. “It by no means works out. Any recommendation I may give to anybody new in actuality TV, don’t attempt to produce your self,” she mentioned. “Your producers can produce you, for positive. Is it manipulation? Is it producing? I requested myself these questions again within the day, however on the finish of the day, I’m liable for what comes out of my mouth.”
And now, due to producers, we gained’t get to see the aftermath of the Brock dishonest story line on Vanderpump Guidelines as a result of they selected to utterly recast for season 12. As a substitute, Shay pops up sometimes on The Valley as a font of hemorrhoid tales and enchilada recipes, and she or he was left to share the affair for the primary time in My Good Facet. Right here, she spills in regards to the VPR season 12 that would have been and solutions all our questions on her pre-VPR life within the halcyon, pre-cell-phone days of Lauren Conrad’s Hollywood. As a result of even earlier than she was the “homewrecker” of Actual Housewives of Beverly Hills, Scheana was all the time Scheana.
The primary huge scoop out of Shay’s memoir was the reveal of a dishonest scandal in her own residence with husband Brock. She writes that Brock cheated on her whereas she was pregnant with their daughter, Summer season, and admitted to it within the wake of Scandoval. “Then, unable to comprise my rage, I slapped him and threw a Rubik’s dice in his course, which he dodged,” she writes. “To this present day, each time I see a Rubik’s dice it triggers me, pulling me proper again to this extremely darkish second in my life.”
I had blended feelings. A part of it’s releasing. It’s not one thing I’ve to cover anymore. When the e-book received bought, there was a leak that got here out, and I felt like that pressured my hand. I wasn’t 100% positive if I wished to do this.
If I’d revealed the affair on the time, I don’t know that our marriage would have survived it. Shifting the highlight of the present in that second, and making it about me, that was not one thing I wished to do. I wanted to guard my daughter.
We have been going to be open to speaking about it in season 12. Sufficient time had handed. We’ve put the work in. We’ve determined to remain robust, keep collectively, and it’s not straightforward, however we love one another very a lot. And marriages are usually not excellent, however I really consider that Brock is ideal for me. And each day since I came upon, he has confirmed to be an unimaginable husband.
In 2004, Shay utilized to work at a Hooters in West Covina, California. The hiring supervisor had her attempt on the uniform, secretly taping her altering with out her consent. Shay turned one in every of girls who joined a class-action lawsuit towards Hooters. Shay writes that she was “proud to talk up on behalf of women and girls who’d had one thing so horrible occur to them, particularly once I knew different girls didn’t really feel like they may take the chance. They have been digital camera shy, shy on the whole, embarrassed about what had occurred to them, or felt prefer it was their fault. I wished to make it possible for anybody who was uncomfortable might stay out of the general public eye.”
I’m a woman’s woman, regardless of common opinion. I felt like I wanted to be a voice not just for myself however for all of those girls. I wished to be the particular person to assist inform their story, to assist get justice, and felt on the time like that was my calling. I’ve all the time felt a calling to share my lived experiences. I believe it’s why I’m nice on actuality TV. At 18, 19 years previous, I wasn’t prepared for that stage of a press tour. However I knew that I might be making a distinction in all of those ladies’ lives.
As Shay was discovering her footing in Los Angeles, she was additionally discovering herself in any respect the most well liked golf equipment. Actuality TV aficionados will acknowledge the names from The Hills and paparazzi pictures of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and the like.
It was good as gold. It was iconic. Les Deux on a Wednesday, that was the evening. That’s the place each superstar was. Generally they have been filming The Hills there. Generally you’ll see Britney Spears in a blue wig. I’m so excited that I received to reside that pre–social media. I had a faux ID at 18. I used to be within the good golf equipment once I was 21. That was the final time that you simply actually simply noticed A-list celebrities out within the wild, residing their lives, not worrying in regards to the digital camera telephones. We didn’t have any of that. I imply, there have been digital cameras. I had a BlackBerry, which I believe ultimately they’d a digital camera on them. However nobody was out recording what Leonardo DiCaprio was doing at his desk. It was the final time that we actually simply had the liberty to be out and never fear about different individuals documenting each single transfer. In 2006, at Les Deux on a Wednesday, no one gave a fuck.
I might have instructed you what promoter and what membership to go to on any given day of the week. Les Deux was probably the most iconic, but in addition the unique Hyde — the place I’ve a core reminiscence of Paris Hilton and Audrina Patridge dancing to the Ting Tings on a sales space. Nobody’s recording them, we have been all simply residing our greatest lives. Goa was good on a Thursday. I bear in mind my roommate on the time, she was relationship an actor and he had a ton of actor pals, Ryan Phillippe being one in every of them.
Shay’s first brush with actuality TV wasn’t on Actual Housewives of Beverly Hills however on The Hills. She and a buddy have been solid to be “whores” and “sluts” that Heidi Montag and Stephanie Pratt would chew out. Shay says that after filming, Montag drove as much as her and apologized: “She mentioned, ‘Hey, guys, sorry I needed to be imply to you, it was all only for the present. You realize that, proper?’”
I noticed … I imply, not now, however again then, that actuality TV was all faux. It’s scripted. And I’m like, “Okay. So that you simply present up, you yell at us, however then after you apologize.” Going into Vanderpump Guidelines, I sort of thought it will be the identical. They’re simply going to behave like imply ladies, however then when the cameras are off, we’re going to joke round. However no, Vanderpump Guidelines was actual. It was not scripted. And in the event that they didn’t like me, that’s as a result of they actually didn’t like me. It wasn’t simply to make good TV.
I spoke to Heidi and Spencer shortly after they misplaced their dwelling within the Palisades hearth. I attempt to keep up a correspondence on social media. I really like Heidi’s new music. I’ve all the time been a fan of her music. It makes me need to sort of change the vibe of music I’m doing with the 27s and return to creating a dance-club hit.
Shay labored at a cigar bar in Beverly Hills earlier than becoming a member of the higher Vanderpump umbrella at Villa Blanco. It was at this bar that she met (and dated) John Mayer and, extra consequentially for the way forward for actuality tv, Eddie Cibrian, who was married to RHOBH’s Brandi Glanville on the time. Shay has mentioned she didn’t know Cibrian was married as a result of (1) he acted single, and (2) within the pre-iPhone days, she simply by no means received round to Googling him.
There’s nothing attractive about cigar, simply smoke. I used to be washing my hair each day, and I don’t like to scrub my hair each day. I love to do it as soon as every week. However there was simply one thing glamorous about smoking again within the day. The cigar lounge that I labored at, the quantity of celebrities, administrators, writers, brokers, a few of these individuals, I nonetheless work with at present. It was an important first job for me to have in L.A. It launched me to Beverly Hills on a unique stage, and I believe that basically helped begin the trajectory of my profession.
Years after Shay’s relationship with Cibrian ended, it got here again in spectacular trend. Whereas working at Villa Blanca, Lisa Vanderpump had Shay cater an occasion that Glanville was attending. The struggle between Glanville and Shay, captured by Bravo cameras, turned the purpose of ignition for Vanderpump Guidelines. “[Vanderpump] mentioned she had no concept that I used to sleep with Brandi’s husband,” Shay writes. “I believe she simply wished to maintain her fingers clear whereas catching each me and Brandi off guard.”
I’ve all the time had a lot respect for Lisa. I’ve all the time seemed as much as her as not only a businesswoman, however as a mom. However I really feel like a part of me admired her out of worry, as a result of loyalty to her was all the time one-sided. It’s like, “What are you able to do for me?” I used to be the instructor’s pet. I used to be her favourite. She made it identified. If there was a narrative she wished conveyed that day, I used to be the one who was going to do it. However the second that I finished calling, I noticed our relationship modified. It made me look again like, “Okay, so that you used my private ache to construct your empire, however you gaslit me about it the complete time.” So it completely modified our relationship.
We needed to ask.
You realize what? I discover humor in all the issues that individuals say about me. You’re retaining my title in your mouth, so I’m doing one thing proper. The truth that now the entire world needs to be like, “Has anybody checked on Scheana?” Generally I’m like, “Can somebody really examine on Sheena?”