Some people are simply made to be reality TV stars, and if one opportunity doesn’t work out, they move on to the next. That seems to be the case for OG Vanderpump Rules cast member Kristen Doute, who recently revealed that she was approached to appear on The Bachelor before becoming a Bravolebrity. Why did she turn them down? It turns out Tom Sandoval was involved in her decision.
Kristen Doute rejoined the reality landscape this year on the Vanderpump Rules spinoff The Valley, after she and other castmates were fired from the flagship show after Season 8. Things could have played out quite differently for her, though, had she not been dating Tom Sandoval when ABC’s producers found her bartending at SUR. On her podcast Balancing Act, she said:
When I worked at SUR — way before Vanderpump Rules, way before The Valley, before The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills — when we didn’t even have a liquor license, I was bartending the wine and beer bar, and someone from The Bachelor came in and gave me a card and asked me to be a contestant on it. But I had just started dating Tom Sandoval, and I was like, ‘I don’t know. This could be forever.’ I could have been on Bachelor Nation instead of Bravo.
Well, Kristen Doute and Tom Sandoval certainly weren’t forever. The two had been dating for years and were even living together before Vanderpump Rules premiered in 2013, but they broke up in Season 2, with Sandoval eventually moving on with Ariana Madix (and we all know how that relationship turned out).
Who knows how Bachelor Nation’s history would have been altered if Kristen Doute had chosen to appear as one of the women on The Bachelor? Would she have gone on to be The Bachelorette? How would Tom Sandoval’s journey on Vanderpump Rules have played out differently? If only we had access to that alternate reality!
So would The Valley star have gone on The Bachelor if she hadn’t been in a relationship at the time? She mused:
Yeah I think so. But I thought that you get paid. I thought you get like a weekly something. So you have to just leave your job, leave everything?
Joe Amabile, aka Bachelor Nation’s “Grocery Store Joe,” was a guest on the podcast, and he confirmed that only the leads get paid on The Bachelor/Bachelorette, so it’s possible that Kristen Doute would have turned down the opportunity for that reason.
Either way, it seems reality TV stars find a way, and if you want to catch up with what Kristen Doute is doing these days, you can stream the recently wrapped first season of The Valley with a Peacock subscription or catch her on the first season of The Goat on another of the best streaming services, Amazon’s Prime Video.
Meanwhile in Bachelor Nation, Jenn Tran is set to kick off her historic season of The Bachelorette at 8 p.m. ET Monday, July 8, on ABC, and you can check out our 2024 TV schedule to see what else is on the horizon.
