Ariana Madix Weighs In On Scheana Shay’s Fallout With Lala Kent And Shares An Update Of Her Relationships With Stassi Schroeder And Lala! Plus Ariana Dishes On ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Season 9 Plans!

Ariana Madix shared her thoughts on her bestie Scheana Shay’s falling out with Vanderpump Rules co-star Lala Kent during an appearance on the “#NoFilter with Zack Peter podcast” on Wednesday, November 18.

“I fully support [Scheana’s] decision [to cut Lala out of her life] if that’s how she feels given the circumstance of everything that’s happened and what had been said to her and about her,” Ariana said, according to Us Weekly. “You know, if that was me, I probably would’ve said the same thing. If someone’s gonna talk s—t about me like that, then maybe next time we talk, that might be me.”

“Everything that happened with [Lala] and Scheana obviously is, like, tough for me because I’m very protective of Scheana and I love her so much,” Ariana told host Zack Peter. “When somebody goes off about my girl, I get really, you know, like protective mom over Scheana. And so that was tough too. And then now, we’re again in that position where if we were filming, we probably — or if there was no COVID — we would’ve been in a situation where we all would have run into each other already at a certain point. Conversations probably would have been had already at this point. But now it’s like, you know, because of COVID more time is going by.”

Madix also shared an update on her friendships with Stassi Schroeder, Kent, Jax Taylor, and Brittany Cartwright. “Stassi and I have texted a couple of times,” she said. “[But] we’re all just kind of in our own little bubbles right now.”

“Obviously, with Brittany, there’s always, like, that tension of, like, me and Jax. I’m not gonna lie, of course that’s gonna be a thing,” she said. “But I love her so much and we did get to see each other at Scheana’s pregnancy reveal party a couple of weeks ago. And it was good to see her then.”

As her relationship with Kent, “For me personally, just speaking for myself, I don't know that I’m at that point. However, I completely understand that Scheana feels that way,” she said.

Ariana added that’s it’s “not that surprising” that she and boyfriend Tom Sandoval weren’t invited to Lala and Randall’s gender reveal party.

“Even if you look at where we left off with the reunion, it was ‘OK, let’s try to do better, and let’s try to rekindle this friendship.’ So, we were already lightyears behind of where we were years ago. So, you know, it’s fine,” she said.

Ariana noted that the show might run into issues filming without Stassi, who is also pregnant with a baby girl, and Kristen, 37, as they are still friends with the group.

“I would think that they just wouldn’t be at any filmed thing. Of course, Katie [Maloney] is very close with both of them. I mean, I’m close with Kristen. We all still know each other,” Madix said, according to Us Weekly. “I think that, like, when it comes to filming and stuff, they would just not be at something that is filmed. But, then again, who knows if the showrunners have different ideas.”

She continued, “You also run into the issue of, if someone’s there, do you put a mic on them? And then if you do then, shouldn’t you pay them? It’s like, who knows! I think it gets complicated! … If I were Bravo, I would be like, ‘You know what, we can’t! It’s too much to deal with. It’s just too much. We’ll just not go there.’”

As her thoughts on Season 9, “Obviously, we would be seeing the births of Lala, Scheana and Brittany. … It’s a pretty compelling story that half of them are pregnant and having babies,” Ariana said of a potential season 9, which has yet to be picked up by Bravo. “I think you probably would see possibly some more new cast members. I don’t have any real information on that, but I can only imagine that given that they’re not going to have a couple of the new ones back that they would probably want to pick that back up with some new new people. And I’m open to all of it … I know people love the drama, but for me, I’m not mentally stable enough for drama sometimes. Especially in the world that we’re living in. So, I might be excited to have a season that’s a little a bit, like, some positive, and super fun, uplifting, like let’s go party and try to be in a better place.”

She concluded, “Having a little bit of that break, it might end [up] being the best thing that happened.”

Photo Credit: Heidi Gutman/Bravo; Charles Sykes/Bravo; Gregory Pace/Shutterstock; Charles Sykes/Bravo