The Biggest Drama On This Season Of Vanderpump Rules Is Actually Between Scheana & A Petty TV Editor

This season of Vanderpump Rules has been one of the most draining in the Bravo show’s eight-season history — and we’ve sat through drunken affairs and literal brawls. However, the most tumultuous story arc of the season isn’t connected to the Witches of WeHo or even Jax Taylor’s endless tantrums. It actually centers on the surprising behind-the-scenes beef between Scheana Shay and a scorned Pump Rules editor.

Shay has always been a point of contention on this show. From the moment she was introduced as the woman who allegedly broke up the marriage of a prominent Beverly Hills couple, the SURver was singled out by her co-stars for being boy-crazy. And from what we at home could see, the assessment was spot on: Shay was obsessed with finding love. Her 2017 divorce from ex-husband Mike seemed to make things even worse — after they broke up, it felt like the reality star was jumping into toxic relationship after toxic relationship.

Season eight has been especially rough for Scheana, setting her up as the scorned fling of Pump Rules newbies Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni. Both men have been romantically linked to Scheana in the past, and there hasn’t been an episode this season that hasn’t made mention of her clingy tendencies or her refusal to move on.

It’s been frustrating and embarrassing to watch the new stars use Shay for a storyline, so much so that the “Good as Gold” singer started her own YouTube channel for the purpose of sharing “the real Scheana” with fans of the show. In the first video on her channel, Shay told viewers that they weren’t getting the full story because she was being made to look bad episode after episode.

And as it turns out, the “boy-crazy Scheana” edit is absolutely a real thing. 

The first and last episodes of the Twisted Plot Podcast, hosted by Evelyn Marley, brought on special guest Bri Dellinger to talk all things reality television. Dellinger is a Bravo editor who works on Vanderpump Rules, and she revealed that she is personally responsible for making Shay look so bad on the show. Her vendetta reportedly stems from the fact that the reality star didn’t befriend her during a wrap party. 

“If Scheana knows what’s good for her, she’d befriend me,” Dellinger proudly told the show’s host in one appearance. “My favorite game is finding all the embarrassing things that Scheana does and putting them all in.”

Dellinger also shared another disturbing factoid that rocked the Pump Rules fandom, claiming that Stassi Schroeder always gets a good edit because Bravo considers her and her fiancé Beau Clark as “special heroes” of the show. 

Both of the episodes featuring Dellinger have been wiped from streaming platforms, and the editor has since gone private on her various social media accounts, but the damage is already done. The reveal is concerning for many reasons, the first being the blatant targeted bullying of one of the show's core stars.

Sure, there wouldn't be anything to edit if Shay didn't behave the way that she did — and she is pretty cringey sometimes —but purposely chopping up her footage to make her look bad week after week is unacceptable, especially since Dellinger herself admitted to taking pleasure in it. There's clearly an abuse of power at play here, and the strategic positioning of Shay as the clown of Vanderpump Rules has definitely had a negative effect on the star's mental health.

"I know what I signed up for," Shay told Danny Pellegrino, Bravo super fan and host of the Everything Iconic podcast. "I signed up to do a television show where I have zero control over how I look. But the way I've been looking [on the show] for the last two years is not accurate of who I am as a person."

"It's fucked me up a little bit," she admitted candidly. "This industry has sucked my soul dry of the things that I used to feel and care about. I've given up fighting."

Dellinger's strange admission also points out the fact that Vanderpump Rules is and has always been The Stassi Schroeder Show. The influencer and author is beloved by the network and viewers alike, but the bombshell has allegedly thrown Schroeder's co-stars for a loop. For OG members of the cast, it's upsetting to discover that Schroeder is the favorite, and many fans are speculating that the news will negatively impact future negotiations ahead of the show's pending ninth season.

That's if fans tune in next season. Recent installments of Vanderpump Rules have been a headache to watch, and it doesn't look like things will be getting any better given the real life drama unfolding before out very eyes. If Bravo doesn't move quickly on this, we might actually see the house that Lisa Vanderpump built crumble before our very eyes.