Scheana Shay expressed concern about Jax Taylor‘s ability to be a “good husband” to his now-estranged wife, Brittany Cartwright, after Tuesday’s episode of the Vanderpump Rules reunion.
As Brittany, 35, admitted that certain aspects of her marriage “scared” her in a scene filmed prior to her split from Jax, 44, members of the Bravo series and its spinoff, The Valley, spoke of how they believe Jax has grown as Jax dished on his new bar, Jax’s Studio City.
“I feel like everyone changes every year, but Jax, he’s changed so much. Look. I still feel like he likes to hang out with his boys and have a good time and stuff like that, but I think he’s a really good dad … He’s got a lot of responsibilities and he lives up to it,” James Kennedy, 32, noted on the May 28 episode of Vanderpump Rules: After Show.
The Valley star Danny Booko, 40, felt similarly.
“When I first started hanging out with Jax and posting pictures of hanging out with Jax, so many people were like, ‘What are you doing hanging with that D-bag? This guy’s like the worst person on the planet. He’s cheated on every person. He cheated on his wife. He’s gonna stab you in the back.’ And it was the complete opposite,” he shared. “He was like, ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.’ He got me involved in the dad groups and the golf groups.”
Meanwhile, Janet Caperna, 34, and Michelle Lally, 36, applauded Jax’s parenting of son Cruz, 3.
“The biggest change I’ve seen in him is just seeing him nurture a child, is kind of wild when you’ve seen the early episodes of [Vanderpump Rules],” Janet noted.
“Whenever I go to their house, he’s very hands on and changes diapers and feeds him. He can do all of that,” added Michelle.
But Brock Davies admitted he wasn’t too sure if he “could ever do too much [talking] with that man because [he doesn’t] know what’s gonna come out of his mouth” and Schean a, 39, felt he had a dark side.
“With Jax, I feel like there is a different, monstrous side of him that comes out, and from what I heard from my friends on [The Valley], he said some very unkind things to Brittany, which I’m not okay with. And it makes me think that he hasn’t changed, and he hasn’t grown. He may be a great dad to Cruz, but is he a good husband to Brittany?” she wondered.
Although Jax and Brittany have now been separated for several months, Brittany said at the time the After Show was filmed that Jax had “definitely changed in a lot of ways, especially being a father.”
“But he’s still Jax,” she admitted.
“Are you nervous about that? Because you’ve been kind of removed from it for a while. Are you worried about going through the ups and downs of a marriage?” Lala Kent, 33, replied.
“I’m worried about what he’s gonna talk about when I’m not around to correct him. Because that’s just kind of our dynamic,” she explained. “I feel like I’m always correcting him and making sure he says the right things and trying to like, protect everything. You get judged so much by people in the social media world and everything else and I think that’s what scares me because people are already so mean and hard on me for the most random things.
In another segment of the Pump Rules: After Show, Jax admitted that when it came to Jax’s Studio City, he “hit the lottery.”
“My buddy Dave reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, my buddies own some bars in town.’ They own a Rocco’s, which is in the valley … They came out to Dave and they said, ‘Would Jax be interested in opening his own bar? We’ll front all the costs, 50/50,’ which is awesome.”
“They had the space. They liked who I was. I’m a family guy. I’m kind of laid back I live in the valley. I’m not really a bougie kind of person. And they said, ‘Here’s a couple hundred grand to redo the place and we’ll make it exactly what you want, we’ll do whatever you want … We’ll just be the backing,’” he continued. “[And] I haven’t spent one dollar.”
“It’s not too often you start a bar and you start making your money the next month. I hear horror stories that [Tom Sandoval and Tom Schwartz] are going through, but that’s part of starting a business,” he added.
In response, Sandoval, 41, admitted he was “pretty jealous” and facing “depression” and Schwartz, 40, said Jax’s revelation caused him “pain.”
Vanderpump Rules is currently on pause ahead of its 12th season.