Teddi Mellencamp had some explaining to do during the March 12 episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, after she confessed to Erika Jayne that she, too, played a part in PuppyGate. But before we get to that, let us rehash the situation for you. Teddi’s co-star, Dorit Kemsley, adopted a dog from Lisa Vanderpump’s Vanderpump Dog Foundation. However, the dog, Lucy, eventually wound up at a shelter, and then made her way back to Vanderpump Dogs. Lisa was a bit upset over the situation, and the incident was brought up in front of Kyle Richards and Teddi during a visit to Vanderpump Dogs during the Season 9 premiere that aired in early February. Following the reveal, Kyle and Teddi felt they were purposely told the information so Dorit would look bad on TV. Thus, the cast has been accusing Lisa Vanderpump of a malicious “set-up”, something fans are now dubbing #PuppyGate on social media. Lisa has been denying she played any part in setting up Dorit, and she’s even tried flipping the story to make Teddi look guilty. And guess what? She may be right.
As we previously stated, Teddi visited Erika’s Pasadena-area home for a little girl talk this week, and their conversation turned into a full-blown “confession”. And we used quotes because they were literally sitting in Erika’s personal chapel when they talked. “Dorit and I were not in a good place a month ago, ‘cause we had seen each other at a couple of public functions and she ignored me, which is fine,” Teddi told Erika. “Whatever. But, Lisa Vanderpump knew there was tension between Dorit and I. So, I get the call from Vanderpump Dogs. They say, ‘This thing happened with Dorit and the dog. Can you believe it? It’s crazy. Lisa wanted you to know.’”
“Lisa wanted you to know,” Erika repeated after Teddi.
“And I had a very dramatic response and I was kind of in it,” Teddi admitted. “Texting with [Vanderpump Dogs employees], being catty back. ‘All right, give me more deets. Show me the tea.’ Not being the most above-board human being.”
“I knew that Teddi and Dorit weren’t best friends, but I didn’t know that Teddi really had it in for Dorit,” Erika then told the camera in a confessional.
“She fed me information,” Teddi claimed, referring to Lisa. “I bit.”
Teddi then told Erika about the visit she and Kyle paid to Vanderpump Dogs in the season premiere, during which Lisa’s business partner, John Sessa, brought Dorit’s dog, Lucy, into the main area of the store, where Lisa, Kyle and Teddi were hanging out and chatting. At the time, Kyle seemed confused and Lisa repeatedly told her employees to “drop it” when talking about Lucy.
“They wanted me to say it,” Teddi told Erika. “I already know this going into Vanderpump Dogs. And I couldn’t go through with it.”
“What did she want you to go through with, baby?” Erika asked.
“Telling everybody what Dorit did!” Teddi said, implying that Lisa asked her to do the “dirty work” of telling her co-stars about Dorit’s dog drama. Still, Lisa continues to deny ever doing such a thing. And she spent this week trying to show her co-stars that Teddi’s not as innocent as she’d like them to think.
After inviting both Dorit and Teddi over to her house, Lisa Vanderpump showed them texts that were exchanged between Teddi and John Blizzard and show that Teddi was in on the plan to take Dorit down. But even so, Kyle clapped back and said that there are more text messages that Lisa’s not showing them, insinuating that Lisa’s not innocent.
“I can see what you’re saying. There’s no doubt that [Teddi]’s hands aren’t clean in this, but I think that it’s not fair to put that on her when she, she wasn’t alone in this situation,” Kyle told Lisa before the camera panned to a confessional with Kyle and she added, “I’ve already seen these text messages. Teddi gave me her phone and said this is what happened, this is my part in it. She did not initiate this.”
Kyle then tried proving that Lisa initiated the entire situation, by asking how Dorit discovered that Teddi knew about the situation. Dorit said Lisa told her, so Kyle then asked Lisa how she knew that Dorit knew — it was a way for Kyle to try and prove that Lisa had initiated the situation and was, in fact, the one that spilled the tea to Teddi in an effort to kick off PuppyGate. But then Lisa said she actually didn’t know Teddi knew — she was just guessing she did because of Teddi’s good relationship with her employee, John Blizzard.
“Why are you believing Teddi over me?” Lisa asked the girls while holding up the text messages that she had printed out on paper. Dorit and Kyle admitted that they know Teddi’s hands are “not clean” in this, and it’s “disgusting”, but they didn’t feel it was fair to be discussing the situation that way without Teddi being present to defend herself. But Lisa still did everything she could to try to make Teddi look “guilty”.
The episode concluded with Dorit saying Teddi’s “not as innocent” as she previously thought, but we have a feeling there’s a lot more to this story, which will obviously play out as the season progresses.
In other RHOBH news, Denise revealed that she and Aaron are getting married, and Kyle struggled with anxiety as she and her family dropped off Sophia at college in Washington, D.C.