Rihanna and Kyle Richards Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Kyle Richards has revealed that Rihanna gave her “amazing advice” on how to deal with questions about her troubled marriage.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star split from husband Mauricio Umansky last summer after almost 30 years of marriage. The pair’s separation had been a shock to many and sparked speculation about why the pair had gone their separate ways.
When Richards, 55, socialised with the 36-year-old pop superstar on vacation in Aspen, Colorado, in December, the pair hit it off and started speaking about the marital woes.
Speaking on the latest episode of SiriusXM’s “Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa” on Wednesday, March 27, the Bravo star recalled: “So, she was in Kemo Sabi when I was in Aspen.
Kyle Richards and Mauricio Umansky were married for more than two decades before they shocked fans with their separation in 2023. Richards was previously married to Guraish Aldjufrie, with whom she shares daughter Farrah, from 1988 to 1992. She met Umansky in 1994, and the couple exchanged vows two years later. Richards was four months […]
“It was actually closed, Kemo Sabi, and I was heading home and I saw there was a light on and I was like, ‘Oh, I need to get something from there,’ and I knew they would open the door for me. So I knocked and they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s Kyle,’ and I saw them like saying something like, ‘What do we do,’ and I was like, What’s going on?’”
The reality star said that after she was let in, the apparel store’s staff told her that Rihanna was upstairs. Richards then asked if they could tell the Fenty mogul that she was there as she knew Rihanna is “a fan of the show.”
Kyle Richards and Mauricio Umansky split in September 2023 Paul Archuleta/Getty Images
“She stopped my daughter once and tapped my daughter on the shoulder when she was with a group of her friends, and my daughter turned around,” explained Richards.
When the pair finally came face to face the Diamonds singer gave her “all kinds of amazing advice about my marriage, the women, and how we’re handling things.”
“I haven’t told anybody this,” she continued. “But she said something that was so amazing to me, and I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ She said, ‘Next time one of these women wants to know all the details of the intimacies of your marriage, tell them ‘Why do I need to give you the blueprint to my home when I’m already renovated?’
“I was like, ‘This woman is so smart. She’s such a woman’s woman.’ She was so incredibly supportive and sweet and just such a beautiful person just inside and out.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Richards came down hard on her costars.
“I mean, my friends were my therapists, but the way they came at me, it was not from a loving place or a friend that said, ‘Do you need someone? Are you OK? Is everything OK? Do you need anything?’” she recalled. “It was unbelievable, honestly. It felt inhumane.”
Richards noted that her castmates “knew the other things” that had been happening in her life aside from the issues in her marriage.
“I was like, ‘Can you not give me some grace?’” she said. “I mean, I said at the reunion, I said, ‘I did not [do] one thing to hurt anybody here, so why was I treated like that? Why was nobody there for me to lean on?’ Obviously, some more than others when I say ‘they.’ That happens to me too. I get lumped in and thrown in with everybody, but obviously, we know who was driving the bus in that situation.”
Richards did not specify which castmate she was referring to with her claim.
News broke in July 2023 that Richards and Umansky, 53, were experiencing marital woes. In September, Umansky confirmed to TMZ that the twosome had officially “separated” after 27 years of marriage.
Since the split, Richards has sparked rumors that she’s more than friends with Morgan Wade. While both have denied they are romantically linked, a source exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this month that Richards “really cares about Morgan and there is a strong connection.”
