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Credit: TheRealSPW / MEGA, Instagram
Dorit Kemsley is dishing on how Paul “PK” Kemsley blindsided her at the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 14 reunion amid their separation.
While also reflecting on her decision to sacrifice her design career for her marriage, revealing PK, 57, pushed her to join the show, and sharing if she has regrets, Dorit, 48, explained the attitude shift she displayed amid season 14, addressed her feud with Kyle Richards, 56, and offered dating advice.
“I was completely blindsided when PK sent a statement,” Dorit shared in the latest issue of Rollacoaster. “He’s always been my best friend, my husband, we’re family. I never believed that things could ever get to a place where our bond and the foundation would ever be broken to the extent that we could do things to hurt each other that crosses the line.”
According to Dorit, she believes PK took a “cheap shot” at her because she labeled him a bad dad.
“[But] I not only apologized to him, but I – in my confessional and in the After Show – immediately took it back and explained that this is after a couple of months of not speaking, I was really worried about the kids,” she explained. “I felt very, very bad. It was in a weak, vulnerable moment after a seven-page vicious email. You can only take the high road for so long. But that’s the cheap shot of it all because he did that statement for the audience, for the public.”
Looking back at the start of their marriage, Dorit recalled putting her design aspirations on hold.
“I didn’t put my career on hiatus to be a stay-at-home mother and wife, it was a choice that I made based on an uncomfortable conversation. It was the first fight that PK and I had,” she revealed.
Although Dorit was hoping to grow her business, she was left to choose between her career and her marriage.
“It was either this relationship or this career. And at first when he had said, you know, ‘One of us needs to give it up and I think it should be you,’ I had a really, really strong reaction … [But] ultimately when you are faced with challenging decisions you have to really think about what is in your best interest. PK was the choice for me, and to build a life with him. If given the chance, I would make the same choice,” she noted.
After stating that she and PK were unable to be independent from one another in their marriage, Dorit said she has great admiration for the dynamic between Lisa Rinna, 61, and Harry Hamlin, 73.
“At times, they’re like ships in the night, and yet they remain very close and have a wonderful marriage,” she said.
In addition to abandoning her career in lieu of starting a family with PK, Dorit was also pushed to expose her private life on camera for RHOBH.
“[PK] pushed me to do the show. I didn’t want to,” she confessed. “[But] I don’t believe in regrets. I think it’s a very useless sentiment and feeling … I think you have to trust that whatever it is, the hard things and even the good things, they’re meant for us to take something, learn from it, and it’s gonna help us grow.”
At the beginning of her run on RHOBH in 2016, Dorit struggled to compartmentalize.
“When I learned how to do it, it made being able to do the show easier,” she revealed.
As for the qualities a good Housewife should have, Dorit said, “The most important thing is that she has an opinion and isn’t afraid to express it … They should be true to who they are and contribute whether or not it’s the popular opinion or action.”
After starring on the show for years and going through a horrifying home robbery in October 2021, Dorit lost some of her confidence. However, after signing on to appear in a production of Peter Pan in London, after having nearly no time to prepare, she regained her strength.
“I felt like I could do anything after I did that,” she shared.
Ahead of season 14, Dorit was feeling stronger than ever and decided to apply that confidence to her relationships on the show, including her strained friendship with Kyle. She also hinted at her final straw with Kyle.
“We had reached a point where it wasn’t a small isolated thing. She had gone publicly saying that I exaggerated a friendship,” Dorit noted. “…[and] I didn’t give a f*ck.”
Rather than tiptoe around Kyle and others, Dorit put her foot down.
“[I wanted to] protect my peace and to make everybody know, ‘No more walking all over me,’” she stated. “I needed to be present — feeling whatever I was feeling at whatever moment and being able to speak directly from my heart without having to even think or measure or worry. I needed to be unburdened, and that’s exactly why I didn’t care how people felt about it.”
“I don’t care how I’m coming across. I’ve signed up for a reality show,” she added.
Also during the interview, Dorit shared her top tip for dating, which was not to “settle for anything less than someone treating you right,” and she revealed that her biggest red flags are “playing games and a temper.”
Then, looking ahead to her next chapter, Dorit said she hopes to be “happy … smiling from ear to ear, butterflies, feeling so fulfilled, excited, at peace, optimistic, and content.”
“Unfortunately, with a lot of the things that I have going on personally, it makes it a little challenging. I’m a sensitive person and family means everything to me, and the idea of it being broken and the challenges that I’m facing make it difficult to feel my best. So I’m in the thick of it, but hopefully—not hopefully, I KNOW that there are brighter days ahead,” she declared.
No word yet on when filming will begin on the upcoming 15th season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
