How Did James Kennedy Really Get His Job at SUR?

May 23, 2024

Through his years at SUR, James Kennedy has gone from barback to certified DJ. But his journey hasn’t been necessarily straightforward, and along the way, he’s picked up several other titles, such as attention seeker, immature, and a few that we can’t mention here.

But how did it all start? How did Kennedy go from being a relative nobody in England to a reality television star in the states?

Well, the miracle worker, herself, Lisa Vanderpump.

James Kennedy’s relationship with Lisa Vanderpump

When we were first introduced to Kennedy, it was through Vanderpump. The premise of Kennedy coming onto Vanderpump Rules was that he was being hired as a favor to his father.

“I met James’ parents through Bruno Tonioli a few years ago just before he started to work for us. [Tonioli is] the judge on Dancing with the Stars, who’s an old friend of mine,” Vanderpump told The Daily Dish podcast.

But even before that, she had become acquainted with Kennedy’s father, Andros, who was friends with artists like George Michael.

“Prior to that, I had met Andros, and Ken knew Andros vaguely,” she continued. “I’d met Andros with George Michael, and Andros had been around the scene in London, so we knew him a little bit.”

Though she didn’t know Andros that well, he asked her for a favor.

“But then we had dinner that night, and they both said, you know, could you give one of my sons, James, a job, maybe as a busser or a barback?”

Vanderpump doubted that the DJ had aspirations to be a barback, but rather a television star.

“He probably, because we’d started Vanderpump Rules by then, I think maybe we were in the first season, thought, ‘OK, I want to get involved in this.’ And, obviously, then he started sleeping with Kristen Doute, and he was well in there like a rat up a drain pipe.”

Throughout the seasons, Vanderpump has been painted as a mentor to Kennedy, but that’s actually not the case.

“We’re not that close,” Vanderpump said on the podcast. “It sometimes appears [that way] because of his perception a little bit.”

Kennedy’s time on ‘Vanderpump Rules’

As we mentioned, Kennedy started his Vanderpump Rules journey in the lowest of positions, as a barback. But, he upped his air time by dating series regular, Doute.

He and Doute’s explosive relationship and proclivity to fight in public ensured that he got plenty of attention on the show. By the time the two of them called it quits, Kennedy was already well on his way to being a series regular.

Later, Kennedy continued to stir the pot with several of the SUR girls. First, he had issues with his friend Lala Kent when he constantly attacked her rich boyfriend. Then, he moved onto feuding with Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright after bringing up Taylor’s infidelity when DJing one night.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when he got into an argument with Katie Maloney-Schwartz and called her fat. This caused Maloney-Schwartz to go on a rampage to get the DJ fired.

But, Kennedy is like a cat with nine lives, so there is no doubt that the English reality star will be back behind the DJ booth at some point.

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