On the first season of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Taylor Armstrong threw two lavish parties. One was a “mad hatter” themed event for her daughter’s fourth birthday in which she held essentially two separate parties, with the adults’ party being much more lavish and well planned and some performers coming in for the children, who were decidedly less entertained Taylor’s big gift to her daughter was a gold and diamond Disney necklace, which impressed the child much less than the puppy her dad gave her which she ended up being allergic to. The cost for the party was over $60,000.

It’s unknown how much Taylor paid to throw the other party, a 20s-themed bash for which she rented an authentic dress from the era and hired a hairdresser and makeup artist to come to her house to prep her. She narrated in that episode “If you want to keep pace in Beverly hills you have to throw parties that people will talk about.” Well it turns out that all the financial stress from throwing money around to impress people was plunging Taylor’s husband into even more debt and despair. As I mentioned in an earlier story on Russell’s sad death, no one is to “blame” for his suicide. He was troubled and he made that awful decision on his own. It does make me shake my head that Taylor was wasting so much money when they essentially had none to spare. Russell’s lawyer said his client’s debt was the result of trying to keep up with the “lifestyle portrayed on the show,” and his mother said Russell was worried how he would be shown this season.

Russell Armstrong was more than $1.5 million in debt at the time of his suicide Monday, according to his attorney, and his mother told Headline News that he was dreading the way he would be portrayed in the upcoming season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. “Before the new season even started, before he took his life, he said, ‘Mom, they’re just going to crucify me this season,’” John Ann Hotchkiss told HLN’s Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell. “He said, ‘I don’t know what to do. I’ll never survive it.’”

Armstrong’s attorney Ronald Richards told ABC News that the show’s celebration of outrageous excess plunged Armstrong into debt “as a result of trying to keep up with expectations for the lavish lifestyle portrayed on the show.

“These couples join these shows, and then they keep trying to outdo each other and they end up spending all their money trying to sustain a lifestyle that’s unrealistic and wasn’t there prior to the show,” continued Richards. “The weekly social events, the dinners and all the BS, trying to pretend you have unlimited resources in Beverly Hills is tough. When every night is a potential sound bite or posting on a website, you end up getting addicted to it, you go out all the time.”

Bravo declined to comment on these remarks. The network currently has Housewives scheduled for a Sept. 5 premiere, but recent events have brought into question whether the network will still air the show as planned.

[From Entertainment Weekly]

Taylor had delusions of grandeur that weren’t consistent with her means, and Russell had filed for bankruptcy just two weeks before marrying her in 2005. His bad business deals were his own doing, and he had been sued multiple times for that. In no way were all his money problems all Taylor’s fault.

It just makes you wonder how Bravo is going to handle the new season now that Russell is deceased. I doubt they even know yet.

Header photo credit: Hellmuth Dominguez/Pacific Coast News. Photo above credit: Juan Rico/Fame Pictures