\n<\/p>\n
Vanity Fair:<\/strong><\/em> What were some of the biggest lessons you learned in your seven years away from reality TV?<\/strong><\/p>\n Stassi Schroeder:<\/strong> I look at reality TV like therapy. I\u2019m not a therapy person. I don\u2019t know if I just haven\u2019t found the right person or the people that I\u2019ve been paired with just didn\u2019t work for me. Reality TV is<\/em> my therapy because everything that we\u2019ve swept under the rug, all the things that we just didn\u2019t say, we\u2019re forced to talk about it, to work through it over and over and over and over again and address all our feelings. It happens to come naturally to me. I don\u2019t understand what it is. The second that I was on The Amazing Race,<\/em> I felt incredibly comfortable. When I did Queen Bees,<\/em> I felt really comfortable. The second I started Vanderpump Rules,<\/em> I don\u2019t know. It comes very easily to me, but it doesn\u2019t for most people. To do reality TV without wanting to build something and use that as a platform is a hard life. It\u2019s hard to really put yourself out there. But being away from it also made me miss it.<\/p>\n Is any area of your life off-limits with this show?<\/strong><\/p>\n Nothing is off-limits. You can\u2019t make good reality TV and have boundaries. But there\u2019s something very freeing for all my skeletons to be out of the closet. Try and find them. Because I really don\u2019t like the feeling of having secrets.<\/p>\n At one point, you ask Beau why he didn\u2019t resent you for the cancellation. What has it been like filming with your husband again, and putting your marriage under the microscope in the process?<\/strong><\/p>\n Reality TV forces you to face issues that you didn\u2019t even know you had. I learned a lot about him. There was a lot that he wasn\u2019t telling me. Beau and I weren\u2019t having those conversations every day because life gets in the way. And then if one of us is annoyed or we have something that we want to talk about, then the day goes on and by the time we put the kids down, we\u2019re tired and we don\u2019t feel like communicating and talking about these serious marital topics. But being on a show forces you to do that.<\/p>\n It\u2019s just unfortunate because I fight hard. I feel my emotions very strongly quickly. That\u2019s the dark passenger in me<\/a>. Then I get over things quickly, which my closest people know about me, but I don\u2019t think viewers know. I get heated so fast, so upset, say the craziest shit, like, \u201cI never want to see you again,\u201d and then I bounce back. I don\u2019t harbor those feelings.<\/p>\n Does reality TV feel a little like the family business at this point?<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019re like this circus family. My children were born into this, for better or worse. And if they choose to dabble in that when they get older, at least I will have given them a head start at nepotism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n