Lisa Vanderpump Talks Leaving ‘RHOBH,’ Dealing With ‘Nastiness’ After Brother’s Death

Lisa Vanderpump is opening up, for the first time, about her dramatic exit from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

In an interview with PEOPLE, the reality star spoke candidly about her reason for leaving the Bravo show after nine seasons. Apart from her #puppygate scandal, Vanderpump, 59, was, at the time, still dealing with her brother’s suicide.

“I had a great time on Housewives,” Vanderpump said. “But to have negativity during a time in my life when I needed to try to be positive … I decided it was over.”

As RadarOnline.com readers know, the star began filming what would become her final season just months after she was forced to mourn brother Mark Vanderpump’s death. The 59-year-old DJ overdosed after a long battle with depression.

“I shouldn’t have even committed to do that season,” Vanderpump said. “If I had had my choice, I would have just wallowed in grief. I wasn’t ready.”

While still recovering from the trauma of her sibling’s suicide, the Vanderpump Rules matriarch was also tossed into a nasty drama involving an adopted puppy. As RadarOnline.com readers recall, the chaos began when Dorit Kemsley adopted a puppy from the Vanderpump Dog Foundation before accidentally giving it away to a kill shelter.

Soon after, RadarOnline.com published a story reporting that Vanderpump was outraged by the incident. Seeing the story, the RHOBH ladies accused Vanderpump of being a snitch for RadarOnline.com — a claim which she vehemently denied.

The star then quit the show and failed to show up to the series reunion, where Andy Cohen and the Housewives slammed her for her behavior.

“I’ve been in a position where the whole cast has been against me before,” Vanderpump told the outlet. “But this time, our foundation was taking a bashing from the women, and it didn’t deserve it. And suddenly, to start dealing with them all screaming and shouting at me on that first trip to the Bahamas, I thought, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ And that was really it.”

Addressing the #puppygate scandal, Vanderpump said she knows what Kemsley, 43, did was not intentional, but the entire debacle became too much for her to handle.

“Why would I want to shine a light on the fact that one of our dogs ended up in a kill shelter?” Vanderpump said, maintaining her innocence.

Explaining why she decided to distance herself from the cast and the show after her falling-out with Kemsley and Kyle Richards, Vanderpump said: “I just had more things going on in my life at that time.”

Though some castmates reached out to her when her mother died last summer, Vanderpump admitted she doesn’t regularly keep in touch with any of them. Still, she is happy focusing her attention on her other projects and has “no regrets” about leaving the show.

“Grief encourages you to take stock. I’m a strong woman, but I don’t have room in my life for nastiness,” Vanderpump concluded.