Fear and Misbehaving at The Vanderpump Hotel

For the grand opening, they gathered a select group of editors and writers to experience everything — and I do mean everything — Vanderpump has to offer across her numerous properties on the strip, from brunch spots to cocktail gardens and hotel lounges. There’s even an underground speakeasy in the mix, and a bumping rooftop club, alongside the combined prowess of Caesars Palace, Paris, Flamingo Las Vegas and now The Vanderpump Hotel.

If the Vanderpump empire in West Hollywood seemed like conquest, then one would need a new word entirely for what has happened in Las Vegas. Dominion, maybe, as there seems to be no other restaurateur or television personality as primed to re-take the strip since Gordon Ramsay’s heyday with Hell’s Kitchen.

From her not-so-humble origins in London nightlife to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and most famously, Vanderpump Rules, it seems an actual hotel was the only place left for her to go, short of annexing West Hollywood. My mind races at the thought the next morning inside Qua Spa at Caesars Palace, splayed out on a massage table by Amy, my masseuse. She has just released a knot in my back that has hot tears running down my face. She whispers at me to relax, but I’m already memorizing the list of notes to take for when I have my phone back, like the crowd of people in the lobby whispering about the new hotel opening up across the street, or 14-story video billboard of her dog that looms like the Eye of Sauron outside my hotel room, beaming the hotel’s motto into my mind while I sleep: “Misbehave accordingly.”

And misbehave I am, seeing as I am crying through an hourlong massage during a workday, with stories to post on this website and meetings to attend. Amy, as she finishes up our session, tells me as gently as one possibly could that I seem dangerously stressed, and should look into booking another session for twice as long before my stay is up. Later, at the front desk, I don a pair of extra-large sunglasses and do just that.

It is my second day in Vegas, and before I meet back up with Matthew for our photoshoot and interview with Vanderpump, I head back to my room and finally take stock of the decor. Photos of her adorn the walls, alongside her horse and dog. A large velvet sofa with all the Vanderpumpian accoutrements — rivets, studs, metal finishes, purple fabric — offers plush, if slightly ridiculous, seating. The bedside tables are a particular wonder, offering mirrored interiors, perspex supports, more metal riveting, marbled tops, and an optical illusion featuring Vanderpump’s eyes. For the rest of the stay, I joke that I’m being watched by the Eyes of V.P. Eckleburg, which gets a laugh out of everyone but the friendly PR staff, who can’t tell if I’m joking or being rude.

The bed, god bless, is deluxe beyond measure, and there is a soothing black and white landscape wallpaper that covers the wall behind it. Inside the shower, which of course features a floor-to-ceiling mirror, for misbehaving, accordingly, a message has been written with tiles: “Enjoy the good life. Profitez de la belle vie. To win without risk is to triumph without glory. A vaincre sans péril, on triomphe sans gloire. Bless the ones who curse you. Benissez ceux qui vous maudissent. That’s life. C’est la vie.” I transcribe it on a postcard left by the bed, and look at it while firing off my emails for the day. Enjoy the good life, indeed.

Later, we enjoy a spry lunch at Hell’s Kitchen, during which a waitstaff looks disapprovingly at my caprese salad order and asks: “Are you sure that’s going to be enough for you?” Matthew and I laugh about it soon after en route to Vanderpump’s suite. I’m wearing a silk shirt with a pink ballet dress and knock-off Valentino platforms. A fellow invitee emerges from the room with a grin, and informs us that the two joked about orgasms and the like. Inside, Vanderpump stands sentinel with a strong handshake and a playful smile. Nick Alain, her designer, accompanies her, and a harried publicist tells us we have just a few moments before they must hurry her along to the next thing.

She begins with a joke, exclaiming: “I thought to myself, I’ve had dinner with everybody, why not sleep with them too?” I point out the eyes inside the bedside tables, and they both laugh again, saying they wanted the rooms to differ from the hotel and Gigolo. Alain explains that “We were very conscious about keeping it calm in the rooms and not what we’ve done in the hotel and the casino. We definitely pulled it back.” By which he means they abstained from the black and red tufted interior of Gigolo, with its velvet lampshades and ornate black furniture and that gargantuan statue of Gigolo. Vanderpump adds that even in paring it back, the rooms still have “the detail of luxury” she’s become known for. Across our six day stay, I’d think about that detail and that luxury, as I’d repeatedly encounter their design ethos across Vanderpump à Paris, Vanderpump Cocktail Garden, Pinky’s by Vanderpump and of course, Gigolo.

I tentatively broach the subject of the since-passed Giggy, who became famous alongside her on The Real Housewives and was a fixture at her WeHo restaurants where the two would hold court. (And where I first met them both, nearly ten years ago.) I describe him as a patron saint of her empire, and she begins to choke up, something very unlike her. “This entire day, nobody has asked me about him. You are the first.” I’m slightly shocked, what with the size of the thing and how much life has been imbued into it. She looks at Alain, and explains that she took a step back from his design. “I said to Ken, ‘Oh, we cannot control this. We can’t be objective.’ I didn’t really have any input with him.” She pauses, and tries to describe his arrival at the hotel. “He had all the boxing around and the wooden thing covering him.” She pauses again, choking back up. “Okay, we’re okay,” and the conversation drifts along.

The publicist has entered my eyeline again, beckoning for us to wrap up, and I ask one last question. Is anyone not allowed at The Vanderpump Hotel? “There are a few where the inn might be full!” She laughs, and I make note to leave the guesses up to fans and devotees. Matthew and I are whisked up and away to a cocktail hour on a ferris wheel that overlooks the strip. We take shots with the bartender Cheryl at the zenith of our ride while she regales me with a story about Neil Patrick Harris in a thick Rhode Island accent. “He’s the nicest I’ve ever met. He Facetimed his daughter at the top, and said, ‘Look how high we are!’”

She pours us another tequila sunrise, and we’re off again via black car to Paris for dinner at Vanderpump à Paris. It’s my favorite property on the strip, even more than the newly renovated Flamingo. I smile as the wall of cigarette smoke from the casino floor blasts us on entry, making particular note of a patch of broken ceiling from the illusionary sky overhead. A piece of tape holds it together, a metaphor for most things.

If Gigolo is the hotel bar where one takes their mistress, Vanderpump à Paris is the place where the mistress takes her girlfriends to gossip about the affair. It is so utterly, deliciously America by way of Paris, like a restaurant pulled from the movie-musical Moulin Rouge. Our hors d'oeuvres come in a gilded birdcage; we all scream in delight at the sight of it. Still nursing a hangover from those Neff-ed up Pumptinis, I do a shot with the aforementioned publicists. Then we order espresso martinis, then regular martinis, and soon we’re under the table drunk and asking our waiter Josh where the gay people get down in Vegas. He’s also gay, and tells me I can print that. There’s something called the Fruit Loop, but the drinks are “shit” and the scene is “dead,” so he and other assorted gay people mostly hang out in cocktail lounges and hotel bars. Dreadful, I interject, but he seems content with it, so I am too.

Josh passes one last round of espresso martinis and disappears with a smile, so we crawl out of there, cocktails transferred via to-go cups, and find a place to buy cigarettes we can smoke in front of a slot machine, or the Bellagio Fountain.

Back on the strip, the radiating heat threatens to melt my Betsey Johnson kitten heels, but Matthew and I persist, soon arriving at the Bellagio Fountain. It doesn’t disappoint, and I nearly spill what’s left of that martini into the water trying to snap the spouts of water backlit by that 14-story Pomeranian ad.

The opening gala awaits me the next morning, along with a phone call to room service for avocado toast and a text detailing our itinerary for the day. Lunch at Peter Luger, a pool day at Flamingo Las Vegas, dinner at Martha Stewart’s restaurant The Bedford, and then an all-night party that would travel from the roof to basement and that aforementioned speakeasy. In the lobby before lunch, I run into Tom Sandoval, haunting the slots bar like a ghost. I hear him before I see him, as he’s on the phone with someone muttering “‘Ey, man” in that signature Angeleno vocal fry.

Shivering, we traipse on over to Peter Luger, where I don’t have room for anything but a dessert that’s quite literally just berries and cream. It satisfies, as does my conversation with the print editor of Us Weekly about the drastic and sweeping changes in our industry. Later, at the pool, I busy myself taking notes ahead of the red carpet later, trawling social media stories and cross-referencing the guest itinerary. A family from Arkansas is celebrating a big birthday blowout in the cabana next door while a waitress delivers me a tequila soda — to help me stay hydrated, and all. I spot Lisa Vanderpump’s business partners, Guillermo Zapata and Nathalie Pouille-Zapata, who arrive at the pool deck looking nonplussed by the loud Sean Paul remix and frat vibes. Check, and check, off the list I’ve made.

Through the flamingo sanctuary and back through the ‘80s pastiche interior, we cross the way into Paris, for dinner at The Bedford. They sit us in a VIP room that is a recreation of her Connecticut home, with massive LED panels that show views of the outside and an occasional glimpse of Stewart riding a horse. Our waiter tells me we’re sat next to Martha’s favorite table, and that when she’s in town for work she orders the lemon drop, due to its lower alcohol content. When it’s family or pleasure, she gets the martini.

We order martinis.

Stumbling out of Paris, I grab a sugar-free Red Bull from my cigarette merchant and trek back to The Vanderpump Hotel, where The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star JZ Styles Hair is holding court with her new man, Marciano, who she acquired (quite) messily on Vanderpump Villa. A story for another time, but they’re fielding fans in the lobby while Lala Kent waits for an elevator. Not knowing it’s Lala initially, I comment on her gorgeous, silver-y bandage dress, and she turns around with a smirk and a “thank you.” At least the reality television cameras are honest.

Upstairs, I perform a quick change into my gown for the evening and rush back to the lobby, where a parade has formed with Lisa and some burly waitstaff at its head. The following Bravolebrities trail her in the procession: Tom Schwartz and Tom Sandoval, who notably avoid each other all night. The new cast of Vanderpump Rules. PK Kemsley. James Kennedy. Her husband Ken, daughter Pandora and son Max. Heather and Terry Dubrow. Garcelle Beauvais. Former Vanderpump Rules cast member Peter and his girlfriend, who is apparently not AI. Across the purple carpet and at last on the rooftop, I spot Sandoval and PK smoking a cigarette while Schwartz avoids them both, huddled instead with some women on the second level. Showgirls with giant selfie mirrors stand on platforms around the area while a dancer contorts herself into pretzels inside an inflatable bubble across the pool.

The skyline turns from blue to champagne to a warm sherbert as the drag queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race Live make their entrance. I swan over to them, familiar with most, and chat up their ringleader Asia O’Hara, who stands with Jaida Essence Hall. They are both somehow more friendly and beautiful and charismatic than Zoom interviews or television shows or podcast appearances would have one believe. They invite me to the show the next day and I stumble into a faux pas with Shannel, telling her I love the older queens the most. I mean the older seasons, and Jaida and Asia laugh as I over-correct and nearly trip in my gown. That’s what I get for cutting up with the girls at a work event, reads my notes.

An hour into the bash, Lisa metaphorically clinks a champagne flute onstage, and we gather around her like it’s a sermon on the mount. Matthew and I find ourselves next to Demy, from Vanderpump Rules, who we had met earlier at the bar. Her aunt gushes to me about her beautiful niece while Matthew catches up with Demy. The topic drifts to her aunt’s gorgeous blue eyeshadow, and she starts to cry, and asks me to say into a voice note that I love her makeup and would let her do mine. I oblige, because it’s the truth, and Demy gives me a hug and says we’re friends now. I believe her, and still do. As the speech begins, we hear Sandoval and Kennedy loudly talking behind us. Demy spends a significant chunk of Vanderpump’s dramatically heartfelt address shooting daggers at the pair and whispering curses. I feel a tap on my shoulder, and a nice pair behind me tells me I should press the record button on my phone.

No more vodka sodas until I get some water.

Onstage, Lisa informs us that as a woman, many men told her no, and now look at her! She’s done everything she ever could have dreamed of. Almost on cue, a drone show kicks up, making images in the sky that would kill a medieval peasant, like Giggy riding a swan or the hotel’s logo. Our rep from Caesars Entertainment has tears in her eyes, and I remember a story she told me about how Orby, the giant Sphere mascot, blew out the strip’s candles for its birthday, which also made her cry. I find myself crying now too.

No more vodka sodas until I get some water.

The night eventually trickles downstairs, into Drai’s After Hours, that aforementioned speakeasy bar and club in the basement. As it was a private affair, I’ll keep the details mostly discreet. (Misbehave accordingly, and whatnot.) Between the numerous shots and vodka sodas, here’s what can be said: Tensions seemed high amongst the cast of Vanderpump Rules, and the rift was noticeable to anyone with eyes. Jessi from Mormon Wives and Marciano have an energy between them that is all-consuming, which makes sense, considering all those daddy jokes they make on Instagram. Oh, and the DJ did not play a single new Madonna song, proving “Safety in Numbers Summer” hasn’t reached the straight community yet.

Around 2AM, I kidnap Matthew back to our hotel room, where we strip into pajamas, order Shake Shack and queue up Lushious Massacr’s latest Dragvestigations. I wake up exactly like this four hours later, in near total darkness. Matthew has tucked me in and I shoot off a good morning text to my boyfriend on the opposite coast. I never did figure out how to turn off that hidden light on the optical illusion side table, and I fall asleep backwards staring into Vanderpump’s eyes, hoping I haven’t been too naughty.

With the bash out of the way, things simmer down with our handlers, who are set to jet back to New York on the first flight out. They send us off with a farewell brunch attended by Vanderpump and friends, and we drink what will absolutely be my last Pumptini of the week. While picking at my potatoes, I ruminate on the misbehaviors encouraged by the hotel: playing hooky at work, ignoring emails, losing myself to the endless maze of slot machines and pool decks and cocktail lounges and cigarette stands. I think about the union bricklayer and her wife, and the magical night we spent under the auspicious gaze of Giggy, connecting across time and culture through our shared love for the Bravo cinematic universe, spearheaded in large part by Vanderpump and her acolytes.

More than anything, I think about the tears in Vanderpump’s eyes when I brought up the subject of Giggy. The entire hotel feels as if her soul has been imbued into the floorboards, radiating a glamour and cold comfort signature to her many hotspots. I fixate on a lamp that is also a chandelier with tassels and velvet and brass and various other accoutrements. Later, in the Vanderpump Cocktail Garden, I similarly fixate on a chandelier that is also a lightbulb with a smaller chandelier inside. Matthew declares into the bottom of our gin and tonic: “Lisa dares to ask: What if a chandelier was also an orb?” There is an absurdity to her design sensibilities that is unlike anything else one will experience on the strip — not in the retro-future pastiche of Flamingo, or the palatial, if anachronistic, Caesars Palace. The illusory sky-ceiling in Paris cannot compare. Nor can the winding canals of the Bellagio and blinding lights of Fremont Street.

At that second massage, after the brunch Pumptini has embraced me, my masseuse remarks that stress can kill, and it's good I’ve found ways to relax this week. For some, that might mean a remote spa getaway, or a relaxing weekend by the ocean. But for miscreants like us at PAPER, crawling about the world Lisa Vanderpump has created, we have our own methods to unwind. What is it Madonna says? Create a new persona. Vanderpump has just one note: Take that new persona, book a room at the inn, and misbehave for a while.

Photography by Matthew Lawson

Locations courtesy of Caesars Entertainment.