Jax Taylor reacted to Kristen Doute saying he shouldn’t be allowed on Watch What Happens Live while appearing on the late-night talk show on Tuesday.
As he attempted to defend the abhorrent behavior he’s exhibited on recent episodes of The Valley season two with an apology to estranged wife Brittany Cartwright, 36, and the Bravo audience as a whole, Jax, 45, shaded Lisa Vanderpump, 64, and his sex life with Brittany while also offering updates on his sobriety, divorce, and more.
“I didn’t realize she was the boss … [but] she’s allowed to have an opinion,” Jax sumised after being asked about Kristen’s diss on the June 17 episode of WWHL.
Later, on the WWHL: After Show, Jax took aim at his former boss, Lisa, after being asked when they last spoke.
“I haven’t heard from Lisa in forever. Apparently, she’s the producer of our show. But I personally don’t even think she knows who our cast is. But I haven’t talked to her in a long time,” he revealed. “She rubbed me the wrong way when she said those things about Kristen and Luke, when she didn’t know about them, and she didn’t know about the baby’s daddy and stuff. So I have no interest in talking to her.”
Back on the live broadcast, Jax addressed rumors of him allegedly faking a heart attack on last week’s episode of The Valley.
“What happened was with that, I had high blood pressure. I know people are saying heart attack. I don’t know where people got that. It was high blood pressure,” he corrected. “They tested me … and then they’re like, ‘Do you want to call your sister and Brittany and let them know you’re not going?’ I said, ’No.’”
According to Jax, he didn’t want Brittany to know he wouldn’t be going to the hospital for treatment because he wanted to see if she would have a reaction or call to check on him.
“I just felt like nobody cared about me. Nobody would come to see me. I just felt really alone,” he admitted.
Then, after suggesting that Brittany’s main point of contention these days was money, noting that she has “a lot” of anger, Jax named his biggest regret.
“My biggest regret is not ending this marriage sooner, and I think I can speak for Brittany. This should’ve been over a long time ago,” he declared. “We let it go, and it just got so toxic.”
In response, host Andy Cohen, 57, suggested Jax’s biggest regret should’ve been how he treated Brittany, prompting him to say, “Yeah.”
At the start of the episode, before Andy rightfully berated him with a number of questions about his season two behavior, Jax offered an apology.
“I want to apologize to everybody who’s watching this right now. The stuff that was shown is pretty triggering to a lot of people, and I’m watching it back … and I’m utterly embarrassed [by] my actions,” he shared. “Nobody should ever have to deal with the way I acted. Nobody should ever have to deal with verbal abuse from anybody. That being said, I’m really sorry that people had to see all of that.”
He also said he was “very sorry to Brittany,” but he added that last year was “very, very tough” for “both” of them.
After two stints in rehab, Jax is now 201 days sober and getting drug tested regularly.
“I have my therapist do it when I go into therapy. It was kind of a deal,” he explained. “I don’t have to do that legally, but I said, ‘You know what? I want to be held accountable.’ Brittany has drug tests at the house. She can drug test me anytime.”
While Jax is dedicated to staying sober, he said that drugs and alcohol weren’t his issue at the moment. As for what was, he listed, “My ego, my anger. My control. My manipulation, all these things.”
Because Jax was able to communicate with the outside and retain access to his phone throughout his time at Psyclarity rehab, many suggested the program was “B.S.” But according to Jax, it was California law that allowed him to keep his phone.
“The state of California [doesn’t] allow you to [be] without your phone [for] 48 hours. I obviously took advantage of that. Should I have left them the phone? Absolutely. But I needed the control because I’m a control freak and I felt like that was my only sense of control,” he reasoned.
When Andy then asked him about spying on Brittany from rehab, he admitted it gave him a “sense of control.”
“When you’re in this thing … I’m there, we’re filming the show, in the back of my head, I’m like, ‘I know these things are going on. I know they’re talking about me,’ and I couldn’t really hone in and lean into my therapy because I knew in the back of my head that they’re talking,” he explained. “There was things going on and I can’t control it except for my phone, and the rage texts were obviously very inappropriate, but I was looking for something in return. I wanted to see if [Brittany] cared, and that’s why I was doing all that.”
Jax was also asked why he didn’t tell Brittany that he stopped paying the mortgage.
“That was part of my downfall. I was heavily into drugs and alcohol, and I just didn’t care,” he confessed.
As for how he can have an opinion about Brittany’s fling with Julian Sensley, 42, with a past like he has, Jax said it wasn’t about Brittany moving on, but her doing so with his friend.
“It was my friend. But then I think, look what I did with the Kristen situation. So I’m like, I can’t really, I don’t have a leg to stand on,” he noted. “I was just really angry in the beginning. I was just really angry at how fast it was. I look back now, [and] I’m not mad anymore. But I just, in the beginning, I was so angry.”
As they move forward with their divorce, which Jax said is set for finalization on July 21, Jax said his goal is to give Brittany the RSS feed of their formerly shared podcast, Reality Hits, “to [help] with the mortgage.”
He and Brittany have also continued to coparent their four-year-old son, Cruz.
“I see Cruz two to three times a week, Brittany and I, obviously, we have different schedules. We have kind of crazy schedules. So it’s like, I’ll take him for a couple days, you take him for a couple days,” he revealed. “That part’s been really good … So hopefully it stays like that.”
Looking back on Brittany’s own appearance on WWHL, during which she shaded his bedroom skills as a two, Jax claimed she “should’ve [given him] a one.”
“The last thing I wanted to do was be intimate with her,” he admitted.
While polls of the audience showed that nearly everyone watching was Team Brittany and convinced that he hadn’t changed, Jax insisted he’s treated well by fans.
“I’ve never had an issue. [Everyone’s] really nice. Everyone’s really, really sweet,” he shared.
Also on the late-night show, after confessing that he had “no leg to stand on” when it came to his past criticism of Tom Sandoval, 42, and his scandal, and denying that he felt it was more important for him to be in the home than Brittany and Cruz, Jax noted that he should’ve offered to voluntarily leave before Brittany did.
“I should’ve 100 percent said that,” he confirmed.
