Kristen Doute’s Path From Villain to the Voice of Reason on ‘The Valley’

In 2013, Kristen Doute was working as a server at the West Hollywood lounge SUR and struggling to make it as an actor when one of the restaurant’s owners — Lisa Vanderpump of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” fame — approached her with the opportunity to be cast in a new Bravo reality show.

Called “Vanderpump Rules,” the show would follow the personal and professional lives of the young staff members at SUR. The two decided to give it a shot, unaware that one day, Ms. Doute’s boyfriend at the time, Tom Sandoval, would become the most hated man in the United States, and Ms. Doute would be publicly fired for racist behavior.

“The worst-case scenario is that it doesn’t do well and no one ever hears about it again,” Ms. Doute, now 42, said of her decision to join the show during a recent interview. “Our IMDB pages are not through the roof right now. I think we’ll be OK.”

After agreeing to join the cast, the two immediately went home and binge-watched MTV’s “The Hills,” one of the most popular reality TV shows of the time. “We wanted to learn how to, quote, unquote, do reality TV,” Ms. Doute said.

Turns out, she did not need the help. With “Vanderpump,” Ms. Doute quickly became one of the network’s biggest reality stars — for better or worse. Since debuting on Bravo screens more than a decade ago, she has been an insatiable vortex for drama, earning the nickname “Crazy Kristen” for her drunken antics (i.e. throwing a drink on James Kennedy, a castmate), battling with gravity (i.e. tripping over a coffee table on a girls’ trip to Solvang, Calif.), and embarking on tireless quests for the truth — or at least her truth. (Her other cast-given nickname is “Detective Doute.”)