Another firing from Bravo’s long-running reality series Vanderpump Rules tonight, as Variety reports that Jax Taylor will no longer appear on the show. A breakout star on the reality series, for a long list of behaviors that might best be described as “telegenically shitty”—including fist fights, infidelity, falsehoods, and other mainstays of the Real Housewives template from which the restaurant-focused series is derived—Taylor has appeared on all 8 seasons of the popular show. His is the third major departure from the currently shuttered series in recent months, after co-stars Kristen Doute and Stassi Schroeder were removed from the series when it was revealed that they had allegedly falsely reported another employee, Faith Stowers, for a crime she didn’t commit in hopes of getting her fired. It has, in other words, been a time of renewal, cleaning house, and reality-show-scale reckonings for Vanderpump Rules, and Taylor’s is just the latest axe to fall.
Neither Taylor, nor Bravo, went into details about why he’s no longer welcome on the series, instead going for the as-dignified-as-this-is-gonna-get “Now he gets to spend more time with his family” route. (Taylor and wife Brittany Cartwright previously spent time together as a family on their own Vanderpump spin-off, Jax And Brittany Take Kentucky.) It’s not entirely clear whether there was a specific inciting incident here, as with Doute and Schroeder, or if Taylor’s particular blend of toxic masculinity and AXE Body Spray had simply finally started to rot in the modern climate. (Us Weekly reports that on at least one occasion, he also appears to have made tweets accusing Stowers of a crime.) As Variety notes, Taylor directly argued with series namesake Lisa Vanderpump in the series’ most recent finale, asserting that it was “his” show; reality show drama is one thing, but there are, presumably, limits.)
Vanderpump Rules—which relies on being able to film at Vanderpump’s SUR restaurant, where most of the cast was at least originally employed—is currently shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s no word yet on when it will emerge from its cocoon, a still-trashy, but at least Taylor-free, butterfly at last.