Mornings in the Vanderpump Rules era: sleeping in, drinks, and gym time
On a typical morning in the early days of Vanderpump Rules, Tom said he would “probably be hungover, because we drank a lot more back in the day,” so he might start his day with a Bloody Mary.
At the time, he was living with his then-girlfriend, Katie Maloney, whom he later married and has since divorced. “I think me and Katie were living down the hall from Jax and Brittany at that point? Or maybe me and Katie were living in our first apartment. I can’t remember,” Tom said.
After waking up, he’d take their dogs Gordo and Butters out for a walk, “then hit the gym for a little detox.”
Lala started her days in a similar manner, waking up “anywhere between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.,” at which point she’d typically text Scheana Shay. “She lived directly across the street in a different apartment complex, so we would walk to the Grove and go to this place called Mixology and have breakfast and drinks,” Lala recalled. “Then, we’d think it was a good idea to smoke a blunt and go back to my apartment to work out.”
Around that time, Brittany’s mornings were similarly relaxed. As she put it, “My alarm in the SUR era probably didn’t even go off. I probably slept in a little bit because we didn’t really have to work until the night shift.”
Mornings for The Valley cast now: work, wakeup calls from kids, and a new type of gym time
Now, the first half of the day looks entirely different for all of them. “I’m a morning guy. That’s when I’m most ambitious,” Tom told Bravo Insider. “I’m in love, so hopefully I’m waking up next to [my girlfriend] Kiana [Carroll], but she lives in New York and L.A. — she’s bicoastal — so I don’t always get to wake up next to her.” Either way, “I work out first thing, because if I don’t work out before noon, I’m not going to work out.”
Then, Tom turns his attention to his career, including growing his “fledgling” podcast, Detox Retox. “I like to get all of my work, any sort of clerical stuff, emails, texts, and planning for the future, all that stuff, done before 1:00 p.m.,” he said.
Meanwhile, Brittany’s current wake-up call comes in the form of a sweet 5-year-old. “Cruz wakes me up pretty early,” she shared. “He’s normally my alarm clock each day.”
Lala, however, makes a point to begin the day solo. “My mornings start around 6, and I do that because it’s really the only time that I have to myself where I can just have my coffee and not hear a lot of chaos happening,” she explained. “My kids wake up at 7.”
From there, it’s breakfast time for both Lala’s daughters and Brittany’s son. Regarding the latter, “Cruz loves bagels and bacon and strawberries and bananas,” Brittany explained. “I make him a smoothie every single day because he’s a very picky eater, so I make sure I get these packs that have the vitamins and the vegetables and all that he needs, every single morning.”
After that, “We just have fun, laugh, brush our teeth, get him ready, all that stuff,” Brittany said. “It’s either going to class or it’s going to speech therapy/occupational therapy.”
Lala’s post-breakfast plans look a little different, as she typically works out with a trainer every morning. Where? “My kids’ playroom, while they are all over the place trying to copy what I’m doing, and I’m making sure that they don’t drop a weight on their foot.”
Afternoons in the Vanderpump Rules days: SUR shifts and auditions
During Vanderpump Rules, Lala and Brittany’s days revolved around shifts at SUR. “My normal shifts at SUR started around 3:00 or 4:00 p.m.,” Brittany explained. “We would come in, prep our tables, and get everything ready.”
Once the restaurant got busy, there was rarely a moment to slow down. “Whenever you’re at SUR, you can just go out into the back alley and take breaks whenever you have a chance, and just keep running in and checking on your tables. So, it was just constant going around and around and at SUR,” Brittany recalled. “We all helped each other with each other’s tables and stuff. If somebody needed a break, you could tell someone else, and they would look after your table while you took a break.”
Tom’s afternoons were equally packed during those years. “I was still going on auditions and castings for acting, so I probably had a few castings during the day,” he said.
In between those, he’d, of course, be filming Vanderpump Rules.
Afternoons in The Valley era: work, fun activities, and relaxation
Afternoons are now the highlight of Brittany’s days, all because of her son. “Cruz swims almost every single day at the house,” she shared. “He loves it so much.”
There’s usually another activity on the schedule, too: “We go to the park, we go to Sky Zone, we go to the aquarium, or the zoos.”
Lala also finds herself running around, but for a different reason: “I have three podcasts that need to be recorded … Then by the time 4 p.m. hits, I’m freaking exhausted. But I plow through.”
Tom’s current afternoons are decidedly more relaxed, especially following the closure of his establishment with Tom Sandoval, Schwartz & Sandy’s, and the news that the duo’s venture with Lisa Vanderpump, TomTom, is up for sale. “Owning a business forces you to grow up… I wish I could do some things differently, but do I regret it? No. How cool is it to say that you had a bar in Hollywood?” he said of the end of that era. “Even though it was short-lived and it went down in a blaze of not glory, it was cool.”
Now, around 3:00 p.m., Tom will “go grab a nice little happy hour somewhere,” though he caveated that it involves “one, two drinks tops.” After that, he’ll “check in with my family, walk the dogs, and then maybe [have] a nice dinner.”
Nights in the Vanderpump Rules era: late shifts, clubbing, and after parties
In Tom’s “prime WeHo stomping days,” he’d frequent “L.A. staple” Bossa Nova for dinner. “It’s not the best food, but it’s comforting,” he said. Then every once in a while, he’d splurge on an expensive dinner. “I didn’t have enough money then.”
Meanwhile, working at SUR, “sometimes we would be there until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.,” Brittany recalled.
If they were cut earlier, though, “We would plan our pregame at 9,” Lala added. “And then it was, like, a 10:30 dinner on a rooftop, and then we would go to the club.”
“After we went to the club, it was going to someone’s house or an apartment,” Lala continued. “We either got very bougie and got invited to some fabulous hilltop mansion, or it was very gritty and we were going to someone’s apartment because we were just there for a good time. We were on that server budget.”
As for when they’d finally call it a night, “There was no bedtime,” Lala said. “It was like, let’s just see where the night takes us, and if we’re in bed by 3, great. If we don’t get in bed until the sun comes up, who even cares because we work at a restaurant at night, and we have all day that we can sleep.”
Regardless of where the night took them, they almost always wound down with fast food. “We loved us some Taco Bell. We had it all the time,” Brittany said. “After work or after we’d been drinking a little bit, Taco Bell was the top notch.”
Nights for The Valley cast now: Early dinners and cherished bedtime rituals
Today, Brittany’s evenings start much earlier. “It’s hard for me to go out at 8:00 p.m. I’m like, ‘Can we have an early dinner starting at 5 or 6?’”
Lala, who is more than seven years sober now, shared a similar sentiment: “On my nights out now, my group chat with the moms is so embarrassing because whenever the restaurant opens, which is usually 5, we make a reservation — but they’re like, ‘No one’s coming to eat at 5. You’re good. You don’t need a reservation.'”
“But I love being home,” she continued. “We say in the group chat, ‘If we get dinner at 5, we can all be home by 7 and get our kids to bed and be there for bedtime,’ which is also kind of sweet. I shouldn’t say it’s embarrassing. It’s very sweet!”
As for Tom, his nights now are intentionally low-key. “I like to do sweet, sweet nothing,” he said. “We all know the term bed rotting — I think it’s bed thriving. I love lying in bed with my dogs, snuggled up, spoiling them, knowing that I have Postmates on the way. I have a delicious, cold ginger ale next to my bed, and maybe I take one hit of a joint. I don’t smoke a lot of weed anymore, but maybe one hit, and then just ease into like some reruns of Friends, maybe some Antiques Roadshow.”
Friends is also Lala’s go-to nighttime show, though she’s also big on Seinfeld. “I obviously love my Housewives too, but that’s not really bedtime material,” she added. “It sounds like I’ve turned into a square, but I swear to you, people tell me I’m fun!”
