She’s been a soap star, a Playboy model and a self-help author. Now, with The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills behind her, Lisa Rinna is going through another metamorphosis—to fashion darling.
WORDS BY JENNIFER BERRY
LISA RINNA IS A SHAPE-SHIFTER. “My God, I have gone through so many different iterations of myself,” the 61-year-old tells me from her home in Beverly Hills. It’s true: In her four decades in Hollywood, the actor, entrepreneur and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum has channelled more people than a soap-opera character with a split personality. She has been a ’90s bombshell in original Tom Ford, dressed in head-to-toe logos while on RHOBH and sashayed in couture at Paris Fashion Week.
When we speak over Zoom, however, Rinna isn’t in a mink stole or a Saint Laurent catsuit. Instead, the star is sitting in front of a tall bookcase in her home in Los Angeles with her signature chestnut shag slicked back and her face bare save for a coat of lipgloss on her famously full pout. The all-black long-sleeved top and loungewear pants are a far cry from the outré ensembles she was wearing just three days before, when shooting this magazine’s cover, but Rinna is nothing if not a master of reinvention, even if some of her eras — like her current fashion-It-girl status — are a surprise to Rinna herself. “This fashionista moment that I’m getting to have was not on my bingo card,” she says emphatically.
Dress, tights and choker (worn as a belt), Buerlangma. Ring (left), House of Emmanuele. Ring (right), Anabela Chan. Shoes, stylist’s own.
Perhaps best known for her eight-year run as one of Beverly Hills’s most outspoken Housewives, Rinna has been undergoing something of a professional and sartorial renaissance since leaving the show in January 2023. Within weeks of announcing her departure, she found herself sitting front row at Paris Fashion Week. Many magazine covers followed — and along with them, speculation about why she left the Bravo show. But in the end, there wasn’t any down-low drama to unpack. After eight seasons of stirring up controversy on RHOBH (“I understood the assignment,” she tells me), Rinna was ready to move on. And she hasn’t looked back. “I don’t always make smart decisions,” she tells me with a laugh. “But that was a very smart decision.”
When asked if she’d do reality TV again — like a Kardashian-style family show — she first answers without hesitation “I won’t be a Housewife again” before conceding that she’d consider any job for the right price. “If you offered me enough money, I would probably do just about anything!” Another signature naughty Rinna laugh follows.
Rinna is full of refreshing candour, and in a Hollywood publicity machine that figured out long ago how to leverage honesty as a PR tool, hers feels authentic. That tendency to say the quiet part out loud has also gotten her into trouble over the years. “I have a very strong bullshit meter. I can’t help myself. That’s why it was really great for me on RHOBH and why it was also really hard for me on the show because there’s a fine line to how much people want to be called out. And I just call everybody out,” she says with a chuckle.
Bodysuit, Wiederhoeft. Shoes, Miista. Tights, Wolford.
During her four decades in Hollywood, Rinna has been a soap-opera star, a Melrose Place regular, a reality-television rabble-rouser, a TV-shopping heavyweight and a beauty entrepreneur. She has starred on Broadway, written three books, been nominated for four Emmy Awards, posed in Playboy (twice), raised two kids and nurtured a 27-year marriage (a rarity in Tinseltown).
After putting her acting career on the back burner during her RHOBH era, Rinna is performing again, most recently starring in and producing last year’s Lifetime film Mommy Meanest. The movie, which also stars Rinna’s eldest daughter, Delilah Belle Hamlin (26), tells the true story of a mother who cyberbullies her own daughter.
Rinna credits RHOBH with improving her acting skills. “Your senses get sharper” after doing reality TV, she says. “And I can deal with almost anything at this point. I’ve had everything thrown at me, and I’ve thrown everything back.”
Although she’s now an L.A. fixture, Rinna’s story started in the small Pacific Northwest city of Medford, Ore., when, as a starry-eyed teenager, she acted in school theatre productions of Rocky Horror Picture Show and Fiddler on the Roof and made pocket money modelling.
Her mom, Lois, who passed away in 2021, always wanted to be an actor but didn’t pursue it because of fear. “I think I came out of the womb to follow my mom’s dreams,” Rinna tells me, remarking on how lucky she was to have her family’s support. While Rinna inherited the Hollywood gene from her mom, the trepidation part skipped her. “If I had second-guessed it, I probably never would have done it,” Rinna says of her drive to make it in Hollywood. “It would have been scary, right? But I was like, ‘I’m doing it.’” Regret? Rinna doesn’t know her.
White dress, Magic Atelier. Top, skirt and tights, Annakiki. Shoes and gloves, stylist’s own.
As someone who pursued fame and got it, Rinna says she loves being recognized, although she does acknowledge the pitfalls. “There are actors who just want to be actors. They don’t want the trappings of fame, and I understand that. But if you want it and you get it and you don’t love it, well, then you’re crazy,” she says with a laugh.
Rinna’s youngest daughter, Amelia Gray Hamlin (23), is currently experiencing something similar. Making her runway debut during the Spring 2018 season, the model has since skyrocketed into the fashion stratosphere, having walked for the likes of Chanel, Miu Miu and Versace, starred on various magazine covers and modelled in glittery campaigns, including a Marc Jacobs ad last spring with her mom.
Both mother and daughter discovered fashion early. (Amelia was 16 when she became a model, and Rinna says reading Vogue as a teenager was a “portal to the world of fashion.”) But for Rinna, clothing also offers her a chance to play different characters by changing her look. “Remember, I’m an actor,” she says. “And we never get enough opportunities to really express ourselves. So wigs and clothes allow me to play characters. That’s what feeds my soul.”
Rinna remembers a particular shopping trip to San Francisco with her mom and grandmother when she tracked down a sweater dress and suede pumps similar to those she’d seen in American Vogue. (“I’d never seen anything like that.”) The budding fashionista returned to Medford with a new wardrobe — including a pair of trendy Chemin de Fer jeans and Candies mules — and a sense of unbridled confidence. “I’ll never forget those four items,” she says. “When I wore them to school, I was bullied mercilessly.” But unlike so many of her peers, who were concerned with being accepted, she didn’t care. “It actually gave me a little bit of a high, and I think it still does to this day,” she reflects before stating factually, “My fashion expression gives me a serotonin boost.”
Rinna also recognizes that caring less about being conventionally “hot” has allowed her to have so much more fun with fashion — like the camp looks she often wears at fashion week (think a Viktor & Rolf tuxedo or Richard Quinn cape dress one day and an internet-breaking bowl-cut wig the next). “Definitely, when I was between 40 and 50 years old, that’s how I operated — you had to be desirable, you had to be sexy for the male gaze.”
Now, her approach to dressing for her daily life — away from photo studios and red carpets — is decidedly pared-back. “I wear this shit all the time,” she says, gesturing at her casual outfit, “and I slick my hair back and don’t wear makeup. I guess I’m having my own Pamela Anderson moment. I love what she’s doing.”
Bodysuit and shoes, Nina Ricci. Gloves, Balenciaga. Tights, Wolford.
Aging doesn’t scare Rinna. “When I was younger, somebody 60 was old,” she says. “But I think I’m helping to redefine that — as is Demi Moore, as is Cher, as is Madonna. I don’t think older women should be overlooked. And we’re proving every day that we’re alive.”
Rinna is also the most confident she’s ever been. “You’re so wise, and you don’t give a fuck — that’s what I love about being older,” she says passionately. “It’s the wisdom and the confidence that you can’t get when you’re 20 or 30 or 40. I feel, oh my God, so much better than I’ve ever felt.”
As we wrap up our chat, the conversation turns to her FASHION shoot. Rinna’s publicist unmutes and shows me some of the looks on his phone as his client squeals with excitement and talks about her favourite moments — like the vintage Madonna-esque blond wig they chose or the bodysuit she did a spontaneous split in. (“That’s fab!”) There are no “These aren’t retouched” caveats or preening — just total joy and ease.
On the topic of what she’s up to next, Rinna teases, “Well, there are a lot of things that I can’t necessarily talk about, but all of them are unexpected — things I’m going to walk into that I’ve never done before that could be really fun and challenging.” When I ask if that uncertainty scares her, she’s steadfast: “No, no, it actually excites me. I like to take on things that I’ve never done before. I think that’s what’s so great about life, you know?” Shape-shifting at its finest.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GREG SWALES
STYLING BY DANYUL BROWN
CREATIVE DIRECTION BY GEORGE ANTONOPOULOS
HAIR Gregg Lennon Jr. for The Only Agency/Bumble and Bumble. MAKEUP Nick Lennon for The Only Agency/Rinna Beauty. PRODUCER Alexey Galetskiy for AGPNYC. PRODUCTION TEAM Ivan Shentalinskiy for AGPNYC. DIGITAL TECHNICIAN Lynx Productions Inc. TAILOR Oxana Sumenko. PHOTO ASSISTANTS Kinsey Ball, Michael Camacho and Yolanda Leaney. FASHION ASSISTANT Molly Mundy.
1 Founded in 1959, Second City popularized the art of long-form comedic improvisation, which thrives on a two-word ethos: “Yes, and…” Performers were encouraged to follow the lead of their fellow players, embracing the chaos as they wrote live comedy in real-time.