Daphne-Zuniga has come to Lisa Rinna's defense.
During a recent appearance on David Yontef's "Behind the Velvet Rope" podcast, the Melrose Place alum, 61, admitted she had no idea how her former costar, 60, was able to navigate the passing of her mother, Lois Rinna, while starring on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
"With her mom dying, that has a real effect. It's real life and it affects you so deeply, and yet you have to somehow feed the dragon," she said of the soap star filming the Bravo series after such a tragic event in 2021.
"I think she didn't have the time or space to process that properly privately. It was happening on the show, then everyone's there to pipe in about it, and I think that's so cruel, " Zuniga admitted. "But if you're going to do the show, then those are the kind of things you have to agree to. But I'm like, 'Where is this going to go? How is she going to handle this thing?'"
"Some people on these shows, they just don't care. They don't care if what they say does something to you," the Beautiful People actress said. "They don't care what's coming out of their mouth."
Rinna officially departed the series in January 2023 after making her reality television debut in 2014. "Something has gotten to the Housewife Universe because of what's going on in the world, and it's reflected in the way the fans react to the world of Housewives. And I just think it's unhealthy. It wasn't working for me. It wasn't right for me," the Vanish star said in an interview about leaving the show.
"I feel lots of things. It’s always a scary thing to decide to leave something. But I always know when I need to do something. What happened was I left, really, right after the reunion," Rinna added. "People don’t know that. But I let everybody know right after the reunion that I was going to move on, that was going to be it."
Before she left, the mother-of-two called out the network for their lack of tribute to her mom. "I'm shocked we spent 3 episodes about the word dark, but only few scenes shown on real human grief," she wrote on social media.
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"I got one episode of grace. That's it," Rinna added of the edit of the show, making it clear the series only showed "a mere moment" of how badly the loss affected her. "Lois deserved and deserves much more. Shame on everyone."
