TLDR
Lisa Rinna’s new memoir revisits a bruising early reality competition stint, accusing Dionne Warwick and Star Jones of rude treatment and linking that tension to the emotional cost of her long run on reality television.
From Task Room to Tell-all
Lisa Rinna has never pretended to be diplomatic. In her memoir, “You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It,” the former “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star turns back to her stint on “The Celebrity Apprentice” and names the two “rudest” co-workers she says she ever had. According to Page Six, Rinna, 62, calls music legend Dionne Warwick a “nasty piece of work” and recounts a “create-your-own pizza” task where Warwick barely acknowledged her before ordering her to fetch a soda. Rinna writes that she rushed off to get the Pepsi, only to feel later that she had been treated like an underling, not a teammate.
On the page, the old task-room slights still sting. Rinna claims Warwick “conspired” with other women on the team to get her eliminated early from Season 4. She also revisits her clashes with fellow contestant Star Jones, recalling a boardroom showdown where she felt Jones blamed her for a failed task and “threw [her] under the bus.” Rinna writes that after that experience, she “could not trust any of the women” on “The Celebrity Apprentice” and describes the atmosphere as intense “woman-on-woman hate.” She even thanks Jones in the book for being so vicious, arguing that the hostility on that set helped prepare her for the much longer war that awaited her in Beverly Hills. Representatives for Warwick and Jones did not respond to requests for comment, Page Six reported.
Reality TV, Real-life Fallout
Rinna joined “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” in Season 5, then spent eight seasons in the ensemble before exiting after Season 12. According to People, she confirmed her departure and closed a major chapter of her Bravo career, one that had turned her into a lightning rod and a fashion fixture in equal measure. In a recent conversation on Page Six Radio, she admitted that all those years of confessionals, feuds, and reunion tapings had a cost at home.
“I think there was a bit of a black cloud over me for a while. And I think that can affect the entire family dynamic,” said Rinna, who shares daughters Delilah Belle and Amelia with husband Harry Hamlin. She added that once she walked away from the show, “the cloud lifted for all of us” and insisted she no longer feels she has to be a “Housewife” to stay relevant. In the memoir, folding her “Celebrity Apprentice” memories into the same story as her Bravo years turns a one-off reality job into the prologue of a much bigger saga about ambition, image, and survival.
Rinna’s Brand of Survival
Rinna has built a second act by narrating her own mess, and the Warwick and Jones anecdotes are part of that strategy. According to Page Six, she writes that she had never experienced such intense “woman-on-woman hate” before that show and casts herself as both target and survivor. Years later, she is still willing to attach names to those memories, even when her targets are an iconic singer and a fellow television veteran with their own carefully managed reputations.
The memoir also widens the blast radius. Rinna recently took aim at her former “RHOBH” castmates, calling Garcelle Beauvais “fake from head to toe” and a “huge disappointment,” while labeling onetime friends Sutton Stracke and Denise Richards “narcissists.” Fans who followed these relationships on screen now see them reframed in print, with Rinna leaning into a persona that blurs confession, score-settling, and branding. For Warwick and Jones, whose careers long predate reality competition TV, her version of events puts them in a different spotlight. For Rinna, revisiting a decade-old boardroom mayhem keeps her story moving, even after she has stepped away from the cameras that made her a household name.
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Join the Discussion
Do Lisa Rinna’s new revelations feel like honest context about a difficult career, or do they risk redefining how you see Dionne Warwick, Star Jones, and her former Housewives castmates?
