Lisa Vanderpump is trying to keep her head above water after her older brother Mark died by suicide earlier this year, she revealed on the Season 7 premiere of Vanderpump Rules.
In Monday’s premiere, the restaurateur returned to SUR for the first time in more than a month after taking time to mourn her brother, who died of a suspected overdose in April 2018 at the age of 59.
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Vanderpump confirmed the suspicion that her brother had killed himself for the first time on the Bravo premiere.
“It’s been five weeks since my only sibling, my brother who was 16 months older than me, passed away through suicide,” she told the cameras. “And for five weeks, I stayed home. Obviously it just being the two of us, we were more like twins. It’s been incredibly difficult, but we have to keep moving forward and make the people that were so important in our lives proud as they watch down over us.”
She wasn’t the only Vanderpump Rules star to suffer a devastating loss over the last year. Jax Taylor’s father passed away in December 2017 after a long bout with cancer, a horrific loss that helped him realize that he wanted to propose to longtime girlfriend Brittany Cartwright.
“That’s when I knew she was the one, absolutely,” he told Tom Sandoval and Tom Schwartz during Monday’s premiere, while picking up the ring he used to propose. “The fact that after everything she’s been through, to stand up and grab my phone and say, ‘I’m going to handle the flights, the flowers, whatever you need, I got this, baby.’ And I was like, this is my soulmate. How could I not want to spend the rest of my life with somebody who wants to take care of me like that?”
Lala Kent also lost her father in April 2018 after he died of a stroke, which she discussed with Vanderpump upon her return to the restaurant at which she is a hostess.
“I mean, 27 and I don’t have a dad anymore, it’s a little intense for me,” she told her boss. “It’s just so sad. You’ve had a loss, Jax, myself.”
“It’s hard, like you don’t even want to talk about it. Then when people say, ‘I’m sorry,’ you start to become emotional,” Vanderpump agreed.
Vanderpump Rules airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.
Photo Credit: Twitter/Mark Vanderpump
