“Vanderpump Rules” viewers did not dip out of the Season 10 finale: The ratings for the May 17 episode hit series highs for the Bravo show.
The episode, which showed the fallout of the #Scandoval, drew a combined audience of 4.1 million viewers on Bravo, on-demand and the Peacock platform within three days. Of that viewership, 2.4 million were in Bravo’s target audience of 18-to-49 year-olds, reaching another series high.
Those “Vanderpump Rules” ratings also buoyed those for Andy Cohen’s Bravo talk show “Watch What Happens Live,” which featured the first post-#Scandoval interview with “Vanderpump Rules” star Ariana Madix. In delayed viewing, an audience of 2.2 million total viewers across platforms tuned in to see Madix.
The finale ratings for “Vanderpump Rules” eclipsed those for the previous week’s episode, which had achieved a then-series highs of 3.3 million total viewers in viewing across platforms, 1.9 million of whom were in Bravo’s target 18-to-49 demographic.
After two fallow seasons, an already resurgent “Vanderpump Rules” Season 10 was buoyed by a scandal that came to light after filming for the show had concluded, termed the #Scandoval. A cheating catastrophe perpetrated by Tom Sandoval and Raquel Leviss, which caused the break-up of Sandoval and his longtime partner Ariana Madix, came to light on March 3.
In an in-depth story about “Vanderpump Rules” last week, Variety spoke with the show’s executive producer Alex Baskin about how this episode — filmed on the fly after Madix called production on March 2 — came into being.
“For us to be able to go to the network and to say, ‘You guys, this is a moment’ — of course, we didn’t know what it would become, but we knew we needed to capture it,” Baskin said. “They got us all of the necessary approvals and clearances so that we could tell the story in real time. That’s why what you’re seeing is pure verité.”
Baskin also detailed how the show’s three reunion episodes, which begin airing on May 24, were filmed even though Leviss had filed a restraining order against fellow cast member Scheana Shay.
