Lala Kent Interview

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Parker Wallace: I know you have a lot of Bravo fans, and they all watch Lifestyle Today of course, and they’re going to be just as excited as I am that we’re about to give them Lala. Lala Kent rose to fame of course on Bravo’s “Vanderpump Rules”, and has since become a wildly popular media personality, and business owner of her own beauty empire: Give Them Lala Beauty, and she joins us now. Hey Lala!

Lala Kent: Thank you for having me, I’m so excited.

Justine Santaniello: Alright well first of all I want to say congratulations on baby Ocean! That is so exciting, she is so cute!

Lala: She’s like the best thing that’s ever happened to me, so thank you.

Justine: Alright so that obviously brings me to your motherhood journey. How has being a mom been so far? And really based on everything you thought it was going to be, your expectations, what you’re hearing from your girlfriends: how does it compare?

Lala: Oh my gosh. You know everyone tries to prepare you for, when, you know becoming a mom, and it is a lot of work, but it’s the best thing that has ever happened to me, and it’s so funny because everytime I see a pregnant person now I have to stop them, and I get like this crazy-I try to prepare them for the moment that they give birth because I’ve always been into asking, you know when Stassie gave birth I was like, “what is that moment like?”, and it’s truly-I tried to describe it to Brittany and I said, “I feel like it’s as close to heaven as you can possibly get”. You know? When Ocean arrived and I saw her it was like, “I would give my life for you”. I’m getting emotional, I’m sorry.

Justine: No, no, no! Please don’t apologize. I feel like I am just always trying to keep it together now in all of our interviews, so don’t worry about it. Plus, you’re at the very start of this journey, it’s super super exciting, and it’s emotional!

Lala: Yes, I want to blame it on hormones. We’ll go with that, but I am just so beyond happy.

Parker: And Rand, your husband, has two daughters of his own, and now they have a little sister. Is he just so excited to be surrounded by so many women?

Lala: He is the best girl dad in the entire world. You know I was-I was dead set on having a boy, just because I had been to so many psychics that told me, “you’re having a boy,” so I’m-I’m a virgo, I like things planned, and so when someone tells me that I’m like, “okay this is how it’s going,” and you know the second we found out it was a girl he told me that he wanted another girl. He’s like, “I don’t know if I’d be great at being a boy dad because I’ve been a girl dad for so long”.

Justine: So of course I am stalking your social media. I’ve seen some of your recent posts, and personally I loved the one where you posted about you pumping, and you mentioned in the comments how people have been asking you about whether you were going to breastfeed or not, and how now that you’ve had the baby you notice that that’s a personal question, and maybe something people shouldn’t be asking. Can you tell us though a little bit more about that?

Lala: Thank you for acknowledging that post. I just-I found it so strange. You know you always hear about the mom-shaming, and until you’re a mom you don’t really know what goes into mom-shaming, and I just remember when I got pregnant there were so many women that would ask me, “so are you going to breastfeed?” And I thought that was such a strange question because my mom had such a hard time breastfeeding, and so I’ve always known that that’s not-it’s-it’s like a privilege to breastfeed. You know you don’t always have the option. And so when my milk did come in I felt very-I felt lucky. Because a lot of moms, even if they’re not into it, it’s like sometimes breastfeeding just isn’t for them because it can be very isolating, it takes a lot of time, but I just felt the need to let women know like whatever you choose: your-a fed baby is a happy baby and you’re doing your job if your baby is fed, whether that’s through a bottle, through your boobies, and also I-I don’t think that that’s the only way to bond with your baby. You know everyone’s like, “you need to breastfeed because that’s bonding time”. That baby knows you’re its mama. It spent nine months in your belly, it doesn’t care what kind of nipples’ in its mouth as long as it’s getting a full belly.

Parker: So Lala let’s talk about the book. How did this come to be and how did you decide you actually wanted to write a book?

Lala: You know when I decided to write the book I felt that there were so many moments in my life that I was carrying that I felt-we-we all have moments that are defining moments in our life, but I felt that I was carrying this burden and I was, you know, showing up to many places with-I felt like I was wearing a scarlet letter almost from choices I had made that were on TV, to being called many names, like “homewrecking whore”, and things that just were not me. I didn’t feel. But I felt like everyone else was seeing that, so for me the book sitting down and writing it was almost like purging and releasing all of these things where it’s like these things happened, but they will not define who I am. It was a release for me. I’m going to put it down, I’m going to explain how it goes, and how it went, and then I’m done with it. You know-I-this is what’s happened in my life and whether you want to accept it or judge me for it, I’m no longer going to carry it around as this heaviness. So that’s kind of why I decided to write the book.

Parker: So if there’s anyone out there who hasn’t picked it up, what can they expect to see? Don’t give away too much, but maybe something that we wouldn’t have expected?

Lala: I don’t hold back anything in the book. I literally share every moment from drinking and things that went down during my drinking, to decisions that I made because things were just not, you know, timing is everything, and decisions that I made that were based on not the right time in my life. I think the book is entertaining for people, I think they can expect that. I think people can expect to maybe open their minds to things that maybe they’re uncomfortable with, and I’m okay with that. There were a lot of things that I put in here that, you know, my publisher would say, “are you sure you want to talk about this?” you know, “it might rub people the wrong way, you may get negative feedback,” it’s like well that’s life. I have to put it in here. It happened, and I’m okay with that, so I’m excited about it. There are things that are soft and funny, but then there are things where it gets real.

Justine: Very exciting. Okay so I would be remiss if I didn’t ask what I think everybody wants to know, what I want to know: what can you tell us? What is going on with “Vanderpump Rules”? I know that so many of you guys are having babies. I mean it’s not really the same cast anymore, I know I’ve been watching since day one. Do you feel like you guys are even still appropriate to be on the show anymore?

Lala: No, I think we’re totally inappropriate, and that’s why we should be on the show. We are not bringing back new cast members, it will be recognizable faces, and who knows how it’s going to go? You know we have two of us, myself and Scheana, that are moms and I like to think that that’s calmed me down a bit, but there are things that have happened in the past almost two  years that have rubbed me the wrong way, and I’m sure you know some of my other cast members that will have to duke it out and that’s what’s great, it’s fun, you know?

Justine: Alright, so I know that me personally as a fan, we care about the original cast, alright? Not the new faces, we want to see the original faces. I mean, I’m ready for a Vanderpump baby edition.

Lala: You know I think that’s the part that some people are forgetting is it-it wasn’t just entertaining because it was a bunch of people working at a restaurant sleeping with each other. That’s originally why it was entertaining, but then people get invested in these characters, real people, and it kind of doesn’t matter where we land in life-it’s-people are interested. You know no one-no one cared about what was happening with Dayna and Max. I mean they tried to, but.

Parker: So you mentioned Stassie, Scheana, are you still in touch with the whole gang? I mean, are you guys on decent terms?

Lala: Those are my real life, ride or die friends, so just because they’re not on a show anymore doesn’t mean that they don’t exist in my real world. It’s going to be very strange, it is very strange, but we’re still in contact, our little group messages back and forth where we talk about becoming moms, and yeah. Those are my-that’s my little squad.

Parker: Well I mean seriously you couldn’t have planned this any better to all get pregnant at the same time. That is amazing, and how nice is it to have a support system of all of your friends that are all going through something at the same time?

Lala: We are super super lucky because we spoke about it all the time, but again getting pregnant is not that easy, and so the fact that we talked about it and then it happened for us, I was like, “okay this is something that we all need to be very grateful for”.

Justine: Alright now switching gears to Give Them Lala Beauty. How is that going first of all, and then can you tell us a little bit more about the company? Now I know that it’s female owned-and-operated which is a huge deal. Tell us more about Give Them Lala Beauty.

Lala: The company was started, so “give them Lala” was just kind of a phrase I started saying when I was in my, you know, belligerent state of like, “give the people what they want”, and then it just became something where it’s like embrace who you are and give them exactly who you are. And so we started Give Them Lala Beauty about three and a half years ago, and we are like you said, female owned, female run, and we’re an inclusive brand, we’re for everybody and I wanted to start something. I am in no way a makeup artist, I kind of just throw myself together. Some would say I’m great at it, others may look at me and be like, “you need some work”, depending on, you know, how great you are at doing makeup. For me, I wanted something that was going to be approachable. I didn’t want anybody to fear it, because even I walk into Sephora and feel very intimidating-intimidated, you know? I still Google how to contour my face, you know I’m still YouTubing. So I wanted this to be something that people can watch me do my little silly tutorials, if you can even call them that, and say, “I can do that, that’s something that’s easy,” because we don’t all have three hours to spend on beating our face like a Kardashian. You know? It’s not realistic, so that’s what Give Them Lala Beauty is-is here to do for-for all men, women and everything alike.

Parker: So I’m sure you’re asked this all the time, but for other women who really want to get into reality TV, what do you say to them based on your experiences and how did it really end up impacting your life?

Lala: Oh that’s such a loaded question, because for me, someone who struggles with addiction, you know you could throw someone else into reality TV and it could go the complete opposite way where you know your life doesn’t end up like mine where I became sober and that show acted as my mirror, and I thought, you know, “I need to do something about this”. But I also think you can’t live your life with, “what if this happens?” or, “what if they expose this?” I think reality TV is amazing. It changed my entire life. I think you need to be a very strong person and unaffected because these people will eat you alive, so you know? You have to be able to shake it off and be able to disengage. You know I don’t look at DMs, I don’t look at comments because they hurt my feelings, so, and I don’t Google myself because I don’t want to see what people are saying about me. So I think anyone, any girl who’s going into reality TV, or just going in on, not just, but going and auditioning for films, you know you have to really love yourself before you walk into those rooms. Because if you don’t love yourself, lord knows no one else is going to give you the kind of love that you’re deserving of.

Justine: Thank you so much for being with us Lala, this was awesome and just really fun! Alright, now next up our good friend, Carly Dorogi, is here to help us ring in the start of summer with her summertime essentials for the whole family. Hey Carly!