Vanderpump Rules stars Brittany Cartwright and Jax Taylor may have been able to launch their love story together on the hit Bravo series, but the show didn’t exactly boost their bank accounts.
On Friday’s (Aug. 11) episode of their joint podcast When Reality Hits, Cartwright revealed that she “didn’t get paid [for her] first season of Vanderpump Rules until the very, very end.”
“I was broke,” she continued. “It took a lot out of me.”
According to Bravo’s The Daily Dish, the two met in Las Vegas in 2015 between filming Seasons 3 and 4. Cartwright moved from Kentucky to Los Angeles in order to be with Taylor, and also to avoid incurring further travel costs from being in a long-distance relationship.
“Because I had to work, I was going back and forth to see you. I was at work for a week and then would see you the next week,” she explained. “It was like two months [in].”
Taylor also acknowledged that “it was costing her.”
“This is the beginning of [VPR] and it was costing her $800, $900,” he said.
He noted that Cartwright was “in Kentucky” while “bartending at Tin Roof [and] bartending at Hooters,” adding that “$800 is a lot of money to spend when you’re waiting tables and bartending.”
The couple tied the knot in 2019 and gave birth to their son Cruz in April 2021, per People.
Nonetheless, Cartwright and Taylor aren’t the only ones sharing these experiences. According to Page Six, their VPR co-star Kristen Doute said she “had very little in [her] bank account” after filming Season 1.
“It was $5,000 and if we became a primary, we got an additional $5,000,” she said.
The three are still reportedly involved in yet another VPR spin-off that allegedly “will follow a group of tight-knit friends who are trading in their glamorous West Hollywood lives, and swapping bottle service for baby bottles as they adapt to the next chapter of their fun-loving lifestyle in The Valley,” according to Deadline.
Season 11 of Vanderpump Rules is currently in production. The first 10 seasons of Vanderpump Rules are streaming on Peacock.