“I’ve known Jax Taylor since he started dating my best friend Brittany Cartwright. And I will say, there is no one quite like him,” Wickham, who has been featured in the background of the Bravo series over the years, began in a lengthy Instagram statement on Thursday, June 11, according to Us Weekly. “He makes you laugh, he makes you angry, he can be stubborn as hell … Jax is also the perfect TV villain and has played into that very well over the past eight seasons.”
While he wrote that Taylor has “done some bad things” in the past, including cheating on Cartwright, Wickham stated that “there’s a big difference between being a controversial person on TV and an ass on Twitter than being accused of being a racist, homophobic and transphobic.”
“Truth is, [Billie Lee] didn’t add much drama or fun to the show, so she ultimately resorted to trying to stir up drama by insinuating that the cast is transphobic, which again is not even remotely true,” he said. “Now, I will briefly touch on Faith. She was our close friend (even after Bravo didn’t have her film anymore).”
“Faith intentionally went after Jax to get together with him (and clearly was doing it for press). She did it to try and have a story line on the show,” Wickham alleged. “I am in disbelief as to the claims Faith is now making.”
“The implications of calling the police of people of color is an issue that this country is finally addressing as a major problem,” Wickham wrote. “But they didn’t call without facts from an outside source. They didn’t call just to frame her due to the color of her skin like any ‘Karen’ would.”
Wickham added that Doute is “one of the most generous and kind humans” and pointed out that she opted out of her book tour earlier this month “because she truly believes” in the Black Lives Matter movement and didn’t “want to pull focus” from it. Regarding Schroeder’s past offensive remarks she made on her now-removed, “Straight Up With Stassi” podcast, Wickham said that they recorded an episode about her “white privilege” after she lost several sponsors in 2018.
He concluded: “I believe wholeheartedly in holding people accountable for any and all forms of discrimination. But I also believe in giving people the opportunity to realize their mistakes and take true responsibility and take action instead of immediately jumping into this cancel culture.”
Currently, fans of the series are campaigning for Bravo to fire Jax and Brittany from the series after Bravo announced last week that Schroder, Doute, along with Season 8 new cast members Max Boyers and Brett Caprioni were fired from Vanderpump Rules over their past racist actions.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Zack Wickham/Instagram, Mediapunch/Shutterstock