It was around the time that an army of drones spelled out her name over the Strip that I realized…Las Vegas must really like Lisa Vanderpump.
A celebrity presence, and the pomp and circumstance that accompany it, is certainly not new for Sin City, where pop stars set up cushy residencies, legends perform in a vertigo-inducing orb, and famous chefs attach their names to wallet-emptying restaurants—all of which become must-visit destinations for vacationers.
But, as her face seemed to be wallpapered on just about every building on Las Vegas Boulevard—not to mention spelled out in the sky—there was the air of something more significant being announced, like a new era when it comes to celebrity, tourism, and the gloriously notorious desert city.
The Vanderpump Hotel was opening, the first time a reality TV star, most famous for her time on Real Housewives, made such a high-profile gamble in hospitality. This wasn’t watching your nostalgic high-school favorite band playing at The Sphere; it was sleeping in the bed designed by the woman who spent nine seasons arguing over brunches with Camille Grammer and Kyle Richards.
“I always wondered if I’d end up on a street corner of the Las Vegas Strip,” Vanderpump told me the afternoon after her name dazzled in the Vegas sky. “I didn’t know I’d do this good.”
Over the last decade, Vanderpump emerged as the reigning dame of Bravo, coronated thanks to her British-polite puppeteering mixed with a delicious dash of sauciness. “Throw me to the wolves, and I shall return leading the pack” is one of her many quotable catchphrases from her star turn on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
She spun that notoriety into a watercooler-spilling spinoff, Vanderpump Rules, as well as Hulu’s Vanderpump Villa, where she presides as matriarch over a libido-surging troop of service workers, and the upcoming Vanderpump Rules: Lisa Las Vegas, about her hotel opening, the finale of which was filmed at the swanky party we attended. (Everyone keep an eye out for me!)
Her hospitality work is foregrounded in each of her shows, whether it’s the Los Angeles restaurants that routinely detonated group-chat gossiping among reality TV fans in Vanderpump Rules, or the suite of Las Vegas restaurants she’s been operating since the opening of Vanderpump Cocktail Garden in 2019, including Vanderpump à Paris and Pinky’s.
But there’s a difference between eating the famous deviled eggs at Pinky’s or being served a cocktail doubling as an art piece at Vanderpump à Paris and waking up in a bed, rolling over, and a wall-spanning black-and-white photograph of Lisa Vanderpump being the first thing you open your eyes to in the morning. (An experience I had at this opening. Don’t regret it.)