Lala Kent is opening up about how her views on mob mentality and “Scandoval” have changed in the year-and-a-half since Tom Sandoval‘s sordid affair with Rachel “Raquel” Leviss was first revealed.
Looking back on her behavior against the former couple, who snuck around for months behind the back of Ariana Madix, 39, Sandoval’s then-girlfriend and Raquel’s then-close friend, and the hatred they received from fans, Lala, 33, admitted she no longer believes the intense criticism was rationalized by what they did.
“I have to say, season 10, that entire situation that they named ‘Scandoval’ taught me a lot,” she noted. “I remember being on Watch What Happens Live and [Andy Cohen] asking about the mob mentality and I said, ‘No. They f*cked up. Let us have fun.’”
Now that she’s been on the other side of the mob mentality, Lala, who faced backlash for taking aim at Ariana in season 11, feels differently.
“It’s just interesting when you put the shoe on the other foot and you experience things that are very easy to be like, ‘Well get over it,’ it’s like, ‘Okay, well, let’s reverse the roles.’ And it’s like, ‘Oh, well, I don’t really like this. This doesn’t feel that good,’” she shared. “I think I’ve changed and I look at things differently and I don’t know that I would ever want to be a part of the mob mentality ever again and just be relentless on somebody.”
“My experiences in life these past couple years have really, there’s been a lot of shifting that’s happened in kind of a short period of time,” Lala added.
While Lala has had a change of heart about the mob mentality that she, her castmates, and viewers have been guilty of, she’s still not in a good place with Ariana, who she accused of thinking she was “God” amid season 11. In fact, during an interview with Parents earlier this month, she doubled down on the shade she threw at Ariana for refusing to film with Sandoval after his affair, suggesting that her not stepping up for the show put her own well-being, and that of her daughter, in jeopardy.
“I’ve always been a pretty intense person and I’ve always been protective, but the moment you have a kid? You turn into a warrior,” Lala admitted. “Anyone who comes in and tries to threaten the wellbeing of your children and how you provide for them is not going to be taken kindly. I stand by what I said at that reunion. I was deeply offended because no one was going to come in and take food off of my table.”