Brittany Cartwright reveals why she stopped sharing her location with husband Jax Taylor (2024)

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that just three episodes into Bravo’s new hit “The Valley,” there’s no shortage of drama.

The drama carried off-screen before the “Vanderpump Rules” spinoff even began March 19, when two of the show’s main stars — former “VPR” cast members Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright — announced in February they would be “taking time apart.”

The couple tied the knot in 2019, and the ups and downs of their relationship famously played out on “VPR” when Brittany joined as a guest in Season Four before becoming full time in Season Six. The duo departed the series after Season Eight. In April 2021, Jax and Brittany welcomed their first child, a son named Cruz.

While fans haven’t yet seen Jax and Brittany's recent marital struggles play out on “The Valley” with their current group of friends, they’ve been following along online. During a recent “Vanderpump Rules After Show” in which Jax and Brittany both appeared separately, Brittany revealed during a discussion about how people track their friends’ locations using Find My Friends that she turned off her location-sharing because she was “mad at Jax.”

Jax explained he and Brittany shared their locations for “safety” reasons to know where the other was.

Why, exactly, did Brittany stop sharing her location with Jax, and what are her thoughts on the latest debacle to rock the group on “The Valley”?

TODAY.com spoke with Brittany on April 2 about that and more.

The aforementioned debacle is the result of former “VPR” and current “Valley” star Kristen Doute retelling a story through a “game of telephone” about a topic that originated during a dinner with Brittany and “Valley” cast members Michelle Saniei Lally and Janet Caperna. In Episode Three, Janet says that at the dinner, Michelle “said something along the lines of, ‘Don’t Say Gay laws protect children,’” and explains her response was: “No, no, no, like, you’re wrong.”

At some point afterward, Janet apparently shared this story with castmate Jasmine Goode, who then seemingly told their friend Zack Wickham, who eventually told Kristen. Kristen shares this story on-camera during a girls dinner with the group, but frames it during a response to what she’s “stirring up” as: “The truth that Janet told you: Michelle’s probably a Republican, so she’s probably racist. This is the s--- Janet was saying.”

Jasmine stands up and confronts Kristen, telling her to look at her, before saying, “You are not going to f------ say that Janet told me that she (points at Michelle) was a racist.”

“The Republican thing was said,” Zack acknowledges at another point, “but that does not mean racism — and I never said that.”

The episode ends with Michelle’s husband, Jesse Lally, telling Kristen she was “thrown off” “Vanderpump Rules” “for being an actual racist” during a group dinner.

In her confessional, Kristen says Jesse is trying to “ruin” her name by bringing up “the most painful thing” she ever went through.

Kristen and her former “VPR” co-star Stassi Schroeder were fired in 2020 because of their racist actions against fellow co-star Faith Stowers.

“I understand why Michelle is upset,” Kristen emotionally says. “It is the worst thing in the world to be labeled as anything let alone a racist — and nobody knows better than me because it happened to me and I was canceled.”

“I’m not proud of what I did and I’m sorry that I’ve hurt people, but I’ve learned from my mistakes,” Kristen says.

This interview with Brittany was edited and condensed for clarity.

On the most recent episode of your podcast, Jax seemingly takes full credit for creating ‘The Valley,’ but you were quick to jump in and share your involvement. What did you do to get the show going?

We had talked about doing a “Vanderpump” spinoff with Stassi, Kristen and Katie (Maloney) back when we were all still on “Vanderpump Rules,” and then, obviously, things happened. Then the spinoff didn’t happen. Years have gone past, and Jax was like, “We should do this again.”

Obviously, we wanted to bring in new people — our new friends that we have now. Jax went to (executive producer) Alex Baskin pressing, like, “Let’s do this, we’re ready. We have some amazing friends who will be great for the show. It will be a next chapter of our lives.” He really did spearhead that, and he can definitely take credit for that. But what I did is, I went to each individual person and really got them to do the show. I made sure I talked to them and told them how great of an opportunity it was — really reassured them that this could be so fun and change their life and they should do it.

I feel like I really got them to want to do the show. That’s why I was like, “Hold on, you’ve got to give me a little bit of credit here.” A team effort for sure.

It’s a different concept than what we were talking about years before. … I’m always the one that’s trying to bring everybody together, and I definitely did that for “The Valley,” too.

In Episode 3, Kristen says before filming started there was ‘a lot of s----talking going on in the group.’ Do you agree with that?

Honestly, I heard people trying to — whenever you’re doing a reality show, people think that they should set up things, and that is not what you should do. They were talking amongst themselves, and I always was like, “Stop that.” I’m like, “No, no, no — be real.” People see through that in two seconds if you’re not being real.

I think in the beginning, they were telling each other secrets about each other. I was not a part of any of that, by the way. This was just what they were doing because there were a lot of new people coming on, and they didn’t really know what to expect.

I think it was just things were getting thrown around, and then the game of telephone just took over. And Kristen just decided randomly to blurt it out.

In the episode, we learned you were at that dinner with Janet and Michelle where Michelle supposedly made those comments. What is your recollection of that conversation?

I just remember they were talking about it. I got up and went to the restroom. They were already talking about it. I was at the dinner, but I wasn’t really a part of their conversation, really. I wasn’t feeling good that day, so I got up and went to the restroom. But I know that it wasn’t a negative conversation.

Jax says in the episode that 'bars destroy marriages,' and to avoid that, he explains why he wanted to involve you in the business of his bar (Jax’s). Did his logic backfire, and did the bar lead to your problems — or not really?

I don’t think that that’s necessarily the issue. I think that I am very much involved in the bar, and I do go there a lot — even now. We make sure that we go, and one of us is there — or both of us will still be there at the same time.

I will say he goes out a lot more because he has a bar, though, and maybe that can be an issue. But he definitely did try to involve me in the bar. Definitely more than Tom Tom (Tom Schwartz and Tom Sandoval’s bar).

On your podcast, you and Jax also talked about how much Jax has been discussing Kristen and boyfriend Luke Broderick wanting to have a baby. Is it weird to you how many times he’s brought it up on ‘The Valley’?

I was definitely like, "You’ve got to put a pin in it." But at the same time, that’s just Jax. That’s his personality. He’s going to say whatever is on his mind. That’s literally the type of person that he is.

On a recent ‘Vanderpump Rules After Show,’ one of the discussions you were involved in was about location-sharing, and you stopped sharing your location with Jax. What led to that?

Whenever I got an Airbnb, I didn’t want him to know where I was.

That’s that.

Your mom, Sherri, has been on ‘The Valley.’ What does she think about the show and your relationship with Jax?

She’s excited about the show, she wants nothing but the best for us. She still loves Jax very much, but she’s always going to be my biggest supporter. She’s excited for me, but she knows that I’m doing the right thing for right now.

Some fans have been rewatching the 2017 Kentucky spinoff, ‘Vanderpump Rules: Jax & Brittany Take Kentucky,’ and noticing some parallels to your life now — like how at the end of the series you went back to LA on your own to make a point to Jax. Do you see parallels, looking back, to what’s happening now?

Oh, yeah, I didn’t even think about that. My life has been such a whirlwind that I forgot I even did those things because that seems like a whole lifetime ago that we did that show. I just feel like now I’ve just gotten so much stronger than I was back then. I was always going to have his back no matter what, and right now, it’s just like I need to continue being strong and sticking up for myself.

"The Valley" airs Tuesdays on Bravo at 9 p.m. ET and streams the following day on Peaco*ck.

(Peaco*ck is part of our parent company, NBCUniversal.)