Stassi Schroeder spoke out for the first time since she was fired from Vanderpump Rules, three months after she was fired from the Bravo hit reality series.
“I needed to time to process my feelings. I needed time to process what happened and I feel like one of the most frustrating parts when this all went down was that people expected me to just understand everything immediately and things like that take time,” Schroeder said on the Tamron Hall Show on Thursday, September 17, according to Us Weekly. “And I felt like it would be better for me to take the time to get a greater understanding of everything and the issues before I opened my mouth again.”
“I am someone who messed up quite a few times. I am the reason why I am in this situation. And I think a lot of people wanted me to focus on cancel culture and whether I was a victim or not, and it’s not how I feel at all,” Schroeder said.
Hall pointed out that many people believe Schroeder is racist. “That is absolutely the hardest part, just going out to a restaurant or going to the grocery store and wondering if that’s what people think,” she admitted. “And throughout this whole thing I recognize, I never felt like I was a racist, I don’t have hate in my heart, but I recognize that I wasn’t anti-racist. I wasn’t, and that’s something I’ve been learning throughout all of this.”
When Hall questioned Stassi’s motives to own up to her mistakes, Schroeder admitted that she is trying to be a better person for the sake of her unborn daughter.
“I want to be a better person. I’m pregnant and I want my daughter to be proud of me,” she said. “And I want to be part of the solution. I’ve been a part of the problem for years now. And I recognize that and that’s why I say, I don’t feel like I’m a victim of cancel culture. People want me to be mad at it and I’m not. I needed it. I needed that.”
She added that she and fiancé Beau Clark will speak to their child about race. “That’s something I asked my coach about all the time and how best to talk to a child about this. Because, like I mentioned earlier, when I was learning about everything, I think the weeks that we focused on Black history, a light went off in my head,” Schroeder told Hall. “Just learning about everything for a couple weeks straight all at once just made me, I had never thought about the oppression that Black people face in that way. There was just so much that I didn’t understand. And again, it’s my fault that I didn’t educate myself.”
Bravo fired Schroeder on June 9 after her past racially insensitive remarks resurfaced amid the Black Lives Matter protests along with co-stars Kristen Doute, Max Boyers, and Brett Caprioni over their past racially and homophobic remarks. Later that month, Schroeder and fiancé Beau Clark revealed that they were expecting their first child together, a baby girl.
The network’s decision to fire Schroeder also came days after former SURver Faith Stowers revealed Schroeder and Kristen Doute reported her to the police for a crime she didn’t commit in 2018.
“There was this article on Daily Mail where there was an African American lady,” Stowers, 31, began via Instagram Live on June 5. “They showcased her, and I guess this woman was robbing people. And they called the cops and said it was me. … It was just funny, because they thought it was me because it was a black woman with a weave. So they just assumed it would be me, and they called the cops on me.”
Hall asked Schroeder about their decision to call the cops on Stowers — and why she retold the story on the “Bitch Bible” podcast.
“The bottom line is there were people that Kristen knew who were texting her,” Schroeder said. “When you’re on a show like Vanderpump Rules, your existence on that show is kind of dependent on sticking your nose in other people’s conflict or creating conflict. … I was completely wrong, but it wasn’t just a photo that we saw.”
Photo Credit: Bravo/NBCUniversal
