Life Is Not a Reality Show

by Kyle Richards

  I couldn’t stand it when Kim would come around and try to steal Paris from me. We ended up getting in huge fights. She was seventeen, and she would try to act like she was the older, wiser one, like the mom, and I would get so mad! Kathy always said, “Girls, take your turns!”

  It’s so funny. There I was changing Paris’s diapers and taking care of her. And then later, much later, after I started doing Real Housewives, I started going to Paris regularly for advice.

  Just goes to show you we can all learn from each other, no matter what our ages or relationships.

  Oh, speaking of ages—I remember after Paris was born my mother went around saying, “Do you realize what a young grandmother I am?” And I thought, Really? You don’t seem that young to me! But looking back, it’s true—she was forty-one, almost forty-two. My God, I’m forty-two right now! Mom wasn’t one of those grandmas who didn’t want anyone to know she was a grandma. She was so proud and loved every minute of it. She became just as obsessed with her grandkids as she’d been with us. Her friends probably wanted to kill her!

  Then when Nicky came two and a half years later, I was actually there at the hospital for the birth. After that Kim had Brooke. Then I had Farrah. Obviously I was in a rush after falling so in love with my sisters’ kids. After that, Kathy had Barron, and on and on.

  I tell you, someone was always having a baby in our family! When Portia came along it had been a while since anyone had had a baby! So you can imagine how much love my little love bug gets from not just me and Mauricio but her sisters and my sisters and their kids.

  I love my nieces and nephews very much. Brooke and Whitney, Kim’s second daughter, go with me to Mommy and Me classes, pick Portia up at school, and sit with us at the house. I have a more maternal relationship with Whitney and Kim’s younger kids, but Brooke, Paris, and Nicky are like the little sisters I never had. I have great relationships with them. We laugh like sisters, we go to dinner, we go dancing. And Kathy and Kim will be happy I’m there, keeping an eye on them. Ha-ha!

  The cousins are all very close, too, like siblings. They spend a huge amount of time together. Farrah and Brooke are dating identical twins—the sons of our very close friends. I was at the hospital when those twins were born! It’s a small world around here.

  My sisters and I each have four kids, so there are already twelve children, and now with their boyfriends and girlfriends it’s a huge crowd at barbecues and Sunday dinners and holidays. It’s so fun to have a big family.

  No matter how many people you have in your family, I hope you embrace them and enjoy them and rejoice in them. They are truly a blessing.

  * * *

  I suppose this is a good time to talk about the fight I had with my sister in season 1 that caused such a ruckus.

  As upsetting as the incident was to a lot of people—some felt that I attacked her unfairly—it was far more painful to Kim and me. I really want to explain the context of that incident, because the cameras didn’t capture everything that led up to it. How could they? Kim and I have been sisters for forty-two years. That’s a lot of context! If you didn’t see the episode, this is what happened. All the housewives had been at a party and Kim and I had been arguing. Really we’d been at odds during the whole season. So at the end of the night we got into the limo with the other housewives, and she accused me of “stealing” her house, which I’ll explain below. However, there were a lot of things off-camera that viewers didn’t see that just sent me over the edge. I got so mad that I kind of lost it—I got in her face and yelled at her and accused her of being an alcoholic. It’s true that I came off looking like a steamroller, and Kim seemed scared and vulnerable. After that, people called me a bully, which just killed me, because I’ve never been a bully in my life.

  Oh my God. I cannot tell you how horrible that was for both of us. It affected our relationship for a long time. Terrible, terrible, terrible. We didn’t talk for months.

  We didn’t want Bravo to air the footage at all, and we fought very hard—very hard—against it. But we’re not producers of the show and we don’t have editing rights. They were determined to air it, because it is “our reality,” and it was an extremely difficult challenge for us, to say the least. Knowing that the episode was going to be aired was torture, and the producers did feel bad for us, so they brought the episode to my house to let me watch it before it aired. We all shed tears that day. No way could I watch it when it aired.

  * * *

  May I Give You

  Some Sisterly Advice?

  Just a few pointers about dealing with the sisters in your life!

  » If you want to borrow a sister’s clothes, ask first—unless you think she’d refuse, in which case take the clothes and tell her later! Ha!

  » If you’re going to get into a knock-down, drag-out argument with your sister, please try to keep the claws retracted. I can still feel Kim’s nails tearing into my skin!

  » I suppose I should also say that, in a fight with your sister, you should refrain from biting. Even if she started it!

  » This too: if you’re going to fight with your sister, please try to do it in private. Doing it around other people (like a few million) only makes the conflict more hurtful to everyone, and no one wants to be involved in your family disputes.

  » Always try to keep the lines of communication open with your sisters, even when you’re having major discord. When you’re so mad that you stop speaking to a sister, every day that goes by is a real loss for the both of you. When you keep talking through the disagreement, or just in spite of it, you’ll have a much better chance of resolving things and minimizing the pain in the process.

  » Always make a point to reminisce with your sister and laugh as much as you can. In our family, making people laugh has served us well through the years!

  » Keep some things just between, or among, you and your sisters. It’s fun to have sister secrets and your own private language! And it reminds you of the unique bond that you share. There is simply no one like a sister!

  * * *

  After the show aired, people said mean things to me on Twitter and Facebook and various websites. It was so hurtful to have people judging me without knowing anything about my life. I thought, Those people didn’t know us! They think they do because we’re on a show portraying ourselves, but that doesn’t mean they know who we are deep down.

  You can’t properly defend yourself in that situation. It was so difficult. Anybody who knows me knows there’s nothing more important to me than my family.

  I take full responsibility for what comes out of my mouth on Real Housewives. But when I say things, people who watch the show might not ever see what led up to it. And like I said, in this case, the backstory of that fight between me and my sister took place over many years.

  I did have a lot of anger toward Kim. And it turned out that she was harboring huge resentments toward me that I didn’t even know she had. When she said, “You stole my house,” she was referring to properties that our mom had left to us when she passed away. To each sister individually she left one small property, and then she bequeathed one larger home to the three of us all together.

  Because Kathy and Kim already owned homes in the desert, they decided to let me buy them out on the house that had been left to all of us. They didn’t need it, and it worked out perfectly for me. So we each ended up with our own home there, and we each owned a smaller property too.

  Later on, Kim decided she wanted to buy back in to the home I now owned. And I said no. I didn’t want to mix business with family. I planned to renovate the house, and I didn’t want to have to go to her about every little detail of the process. And she already owned a large home there. People asked me, “What does she mean you stole her house?” I mean, you can’t actually pick up a house and carry it across the street and no one will notice! But try explaining the actual story on Twitter.

  * * *

  “Thank you for my sisters, a gift from you to me. For when I look into
their eyes, it’s you that I will see.”

  —from a poem I wrote for my mother’s funeral

  * * *

  I just didn’t realize how bitter Kim felt toward me for that, for not allowing her to buy back in. I can see now that she must have been holding on to a great deal of deep-rooted anger, and it just all came to a head that night.

  I have an intense relationship with my sister, but I love her very much. And while people who watched season 1 may think I’m the strong personality of the two, the fact is Kim’s a very strong personality too. She has every bit as much fire in her as I do. It didn’t come off on the show that way because I had pulled her in with girls that she didn’t know, and they really weren’t her cup of tea at the time. (Yes, I’m the one who asked Kim to be on the show in the first place, and I’m sure she has wanted to kill me because of it on more than one occasion. Ha!) Kim may have seemed shy and uncomfortable, but I promise you she is an extrovert who is usually never shy or reserved!

  * * *

  When Tragedy Strikes

  My sisters and I have suffered through the loss of our parents—a painful experience, as anyone who’s lost a parent knows. Every family endures tragedy of one sort or another. If it’s played out in public it can be particularly difficult, and sometimes the circumstances surrounding a loss make it all the more wrenching.

  Whatever the source of loss or tragedy or crisis, one thing remains true: that’s when family has to pull together. That’s when you have to rely on your sisters or brothers or aunts or cousins, even on the friends who are family to you. That’s when you as family have to form a tight circle of love and support to get you through the painful ordeal.

  Sometimes a loss is compounded by conflict among the people left behind. But that is precisely the time when you should try your hardest to set personal disagreements aside to come together.

  I could never have gotten through the death of my mother or even Farrah going to college without my sisters’ help. And I believe that my own daughters have already begun building the same kind of bond that will see them through personal tragedies and crises in their lives.

  Some of my friends feel almost like sisters to me, including the women I’ve become close to from Real Housewives. When one of them is hurting, I do too. When you truly love and care for someone, you suffer along with them. At those times I try my best to step in like a sister to lend a hand or a shoulder, and to give my time and effort to help them. I envelop them with love.

  Tragedy sometimes makes us feel that we can’t survive the pain, can’t make it through. But with sisters and family and friends, we can. What a blessing they are.

  * * *

  No matter what, though, having that fight play out on camera for millions of people to see was just absolutely horrible for both of us, as was the aftermath. Kim was of course very hurt. And I began having anxiety attacks from the stress.

  This is where the hummingbirds come in. I told you about the psychic who told us our mother would come to us as hummingbirds. When she said that, I was astonished because I’ve had many strange things happen with hummingbirds. They often flit around me and won’t leave my side, to the point that I’ve been able to take close-up pictures of them right next to me. And I had an experience with a hummingbird after the big fight with my sister.

  I was immediately devastated by the fight. Afterward I lay in bed sobbing and talking to my mom. “What do I do, Mom? What should I do? Talk to me.” I just cried and cried and hoped for an answer.

  Finally I got up and went downstairs, and I saw a hummingbird outside the window of my kitchen door, just lying on the ground. I was shocked; I’d never seen a hummingbird still like that. Even if they linger close to me, they always seem to be flitting about. So I opened the door and picked it up and held it in my hand, sobbing.

  * * *

  The In-Laws

  I’d like to clear up a common misconception once and for all.

  Mauricio is Mexican. I think most people know that, though a few people think he’s Italian. No, he was born in Mexico, lived there until he was six, moved to the U.S. for a while, and then went back to go to high school, and finally moved here when he was about twenty.

  But Mauricio does not have any Mexican blood, which confuses and even upsets some people. When I say he has no Mexican blood some people think I’m insulting the Mexican people, which is ridiculous. I don’t care where Mauricio’s blood comes from! I’m just trying to explain his background.

  Mauricio’s father Eduardo is Russian, which explains my husband’s last name, Umansky, the name I use in my personal life. Mauricio’s grandfather had taken the family out of the country to escape the genocide during World War II and ended up in Mexico. Mauricio’s mother, Estella, is of Lithuanian, Greek, and Turkish descent. (Makes sense—Mauricio looks like a Greek statue to me! Ha-ha!)

  But just like I would say I’m American because I was born and raised here, the Umanskys say they’re Mexican. Because they are! They loved their life in Mexico. So no one is disavowing their heritage here!

  In any case, it doesn’t matter where they came from because they’re wonderful, lovely people, and I feel so fortunate that we’re all family. Sometimes my mother-in-law comes to the house to babysit if Mauricio and I have to go away, and the kids visit her here in town too.

  Mauricio’s grandmother and his cousins and uncles still live in Mexico City and we visit there sometimes. His grandmother Olga—or Tita to the kids—is amazing. Even in her eighties, she’s always so put-together and energetic. I want to be like her! She walks a couple of miles every day and she’s always dressed to the nines, with her big sunglasses, jewelry, and manicured nails. I love her for that. After that rough patch at the beginning that prompted me to write her a letter, we developed a very nice relationship.

  I had one real advantage with my in-laws when I started dating Mauricio. You know how some mothers can be very critical of the woman their son is dating, especially of their cooking? Well, I had it made with Mauricio’s mother, because she didn’t know how to boil water or make toast! Everything I made—and I didn’t have much of a repertoire then—she thought was amazing. She always wanted the recipe! I could have made soup from a can and she would have said to Mauricio, “Darling, this girl can really cook!” Ha-ha!

  * * *

  Then I looked at the bird and thought, This is my mom! I said, “Mom, what do you want me to do? What are you trying to tell me?” I glanced up through the window and saw my housekeeper looking at me like, oh my God—she’s lost her mind! Ha-ha!

  The bird was totally limp and his eyes were shut, and I was pretty sure he was dying. Then all of a sudden his eyes popped open. It was the most unbelievable moment. And then he flew away.

  I went inside and told my husband the story and even he got tears in his eyes—which is something, because, you know, men are not ones to be thinking, Ooh, that’s a sign! But I believe it was a sign from my mom, letting me know she was there and I know she was sad about what happened.

  I admit it: the fight was something that (a) should have never happened and (b), if it did happen, it should have been a private family moment. But when cameras are filming you living your life, it’s easy to forget they’re around. Kim and I have been on camera since we were little girls, and the Real Housewives crew is with you so much that they become very familiar. They’re not strangers! I mean, my kids get excited and jump up to greet them when they arrive at my house. When your emotions run away with you, you can totally forget you’re being filmed. That’s actually the whole point of the show!

  I never thought of myself as a naive person before, but I realize I was very naive in thinking that filming a reality show would be easy. No big deal, you’re just being yourself and there’s a camera there catching it, right? I’m a very open and honest person, so no problem. Right?

  I had no clue how anxiety-provoking it could be. My niece Paris seemed like she had fun with her reality show. I think some of it was actually d
ifficult for her and hurt more than she let on, but I figured if she could handle it, so could I. I mean, I am older, but I guess she’s stronger! Dealing with the public’s misperceptions of me, especially with regard to my sister, was just really rough.

  Strangely enough, I think something good came out of the blowup between Kim and me. Since that fight, I feel like our relationship is so much better. For me, it’s been an opportunity to go back to where we were not just before the fight but to where we were years ago. She got things out, I got things out, and it was therapeutic in an odd way. I can’t speak for Kim, but I think it was a blessing.

  The whole experience also taught me some lessons. In fact, the very source of much of my distress—people who didn’t know me criticizing and judging me—was actually instrumental in helping me learn those lessons.

  People on Twitter and everywhere else said negative things about me, not just that I was terrible for attacking Kim that one time but that I was rude to her all season, and how dare I not stick by my sister? Finally I sat back and thought, Okay, even though those people don’t know the background of WHY I felt or acted the way I did, I can learn from them nevertheless. Even though I had my reasons for reaching my boiling point, there’s a better way to handle things. I don’t need to get so frustrated or angry.