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Revisit Kristen Doute's Relationships from Tom Sandoval to Luke Broderick
The former SURver's current love has been happening off-camera, and she's never been happier.
Kristen Doute is not afraid to wear her heart on her sleeve.
During her time on Vanderpump Rules — which spanned Seasons 1 through 8 — Kristen gave fans a front-row seat to several of her relationships as they played out on screen. She dated Tom Sandoval, James Kennedy, and Brian Carter on the series, as well as admitted to secretly hooking up with Jax Taylor.
Now, since departing the show, Kristen is in a relationship with Luke Broderick, whom she shares a podcast with. Here's what to know about Kristen's past and current relationships.
Kristen Doute and Tom Sandoval
When Vanderpump Rules began airing in 2013, Kristen was in a relationship with Tom Sandoval, and the couple shared an apartment.
In Season 2, Kristen accused Tom of cheating on her with Ariana Madix (who was a SUR bartender at the time) after finding a photo booth strip of Tom and Ariana in the apartment. Both Tom and Ariana denied that anything happened.
Later that season, Tom and Kristen called it quits, but they continued to live together and Kristen continued to drive him around. “I convinced myself that if I gave him the space that he had asked for, he would eventually miss me and we would get back together,” she wrote about their “hot and cold” relationship post-split in a Season 2 cast blog.
Eventually, Kristen and Tom ended things permanently and he officially began dating Ariana.
“In hindsight, it's obvious that Tom and I should have broken up a long time ago. We both had so much resentment; there really was no bouncing back. For so many years, I didn't feel like his girlfriend. I felt like his mom, his personal assistant, his maid. I focused more on his day-to-day then I did my own,” Kristen continued in the blog. “I cared about him so much that I was willing to sacrifice my happiness to make his life easier. The fun and the attraction dissipated over time and it felt like more of a business arrangement than a relationship.”
Kristen Doute and Jax Taylor
Though they never officially dated, Kristen and Jax became briefly entangled, which had a lasting ripple effect in their friend group. In Season 2, Jax admitted to having sex with Kristen — when Kristen was still dating Jax’s best friend Sandoval and Jax was dating Kristen’s best friend Stassi Schroeder. To add insult to injury, the hookup happened in the apartment Kristen shared with Sandoval.
Later, Kristen and Jax revealed that they actually hooked up twice, which is detailed in the video below. Kristen said she was “blacked out” when it happened and didn’t really remember it.
Kristen Doute and James Kennedy
Shortly after her split from Sandoval, Kristen started a relationship with James Kennedy, who was working as a busser at SUR at the time.
Kristen recalled how their relationship began in a Season 2 cast blog: “I didn't plan for James and I to start dating. He is an amazing friend to me and I truly thank him for giving me the tough love I needed after the break up. He put his foot down against my tears and told me to move on the way that Tom already had. He wasn't trying to woo me in to bed or screw Tom over -- it was a natural transition that neither of us expected or planned. He became one of my best friends and the chemistry was undeniable.”
James officially joined the cast of Vanderpump Rules in Season 3, and Kristen explained their relationship in Episode 1.
"For the last five months, James and I have been dating. He's 22. He's British," Kristen she said. "He's really good to me."
However, Kristen and James ultimately had a fairly tumultuous relationship, which played out on the show, and fans got to see a number of their explosive arguments.
In September 2015, news broke that the pair had split — a situation fans watched play out in the parking lot of SUR during Season 4, Episode 4.
Kristen later revealed that she actually believed James “used [her] to be on the show.”
"James did his homework. He knew exactly what to do to get me," Kristen told The Daily Dish in 2015. "He knew when to swoop in, when I wasn't really friends with anyone yet. [He also knew] basically don't act like Tom and don't be an ass, and then I'm going to like him. And he also knows that I fix little, broken souls. He just did his homework and he knew exactly what he was doing. And he played me right until the point that he got through one whole season, became a primary and then dropped me."
Kristin Doute and Brian Carter
After splitting from James, Kristen dated Brian Carter, and the two eventually moved in together.
However, their relationship (which played out on Vanderpump Rules) was rocky and the two began couples therapy in an attempt to sort out their issues.
“My issues are that you bark at me, that you raise your voice and that you cuss,” Kristen told Carter. In the same episode, she said that she was paying for “everything” in their relationship when Carter wasn’t working.
At the Season 7 reunion, Kristen confirmed that she and Carter were no longer together.
"It's just that he didn't respect me enough to pay his way and that was a big deal to me. I started feeling taking advantage of. I would flee to Stassi's house late at night being super upset,” she said at the reunion. “The bottom line is he and I are not together. I made that choice for myself.”
In April 2019, Kristen purchased a home and moved out of the pad she shared with Carter.
Luke Broderick
Kristen and Luke Broderick first met at a wedding in June 2022. “Right after we met at the wedding, or like hung out at the wedding, we had sex,” Kristen explained on the podcast she now has with Luke, Sex, Love, and What Else Matters.
Early on, she had reservations about getting into a relationship with him, because he lived in Colorado at the time and is eight years younger than she is.
“Just the thought of being someone’s girlfriend again threw me through a loop because I want to be a wife and I want to be a mother,” she added. “Most of all, I just want to be a mother and a partner. And I was so tired of being a girlfriend for a couple of years and then having sh-t fall apart.”
Still, they were able to make it work. “You definitely never pushed anything on me. You were just persistent. You’re consistent, which is what made me fall in love with you,” Kristen told Luke on the podcast. “But the persistence definitely made me stay interested in you.”
In November 2023, Kristen and Luke opened up on their podcast about a difficult experience they recently shared: Kristen had a miscarriage at six weeks. "It's really f-cking terrifying because you always think, 'What's wrong? What did I do wrong? Could I have done something different?' And my doctor and my friends have told me, inside and out, up and down, that there's no reason — you can Google it 'til the day you die — there is literally no cause," Kristen shared. "They don't know why."
Amid the tragedy, Kristen is trying her best to be optimistic. As she put it, "The only silver lining, the fact that we've now been digesting this for the last four or five days, is that I know once Luke and I are past this, we can try again."
