PK Kemsley of ‘RHOBH’ Says ‘Toxic’ Reality TV Destroyed His Marriage to Dorit

PK Kemsley says joining The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was the kiss of death for his marriage to Dorit Kemsley. 

PK Kemsley says Dorit ‘didn’t want to go on the show’ 

The Bravo personality recently appeared on the We Need to Talk podcast, where he opened up about his regrets about pushing his wife to join RHOBH. 

“I lit the fire because I put her on the show,” he said of Dorit, who filed for divorce in April 2025. “She didn’t want to go on the show.”

PK explained that after he and Dorit moved to Los Angeles, he wanted to make his mark on the city. When he learned that Bravo was casting for RHOBH, he encouraged Dorit to audition, believing celebrity would afford them the kind of lifestyle and attention he craved. 

“First of all, I believed that I had the most beautiful, charismatic, sharp, ferociously ambitious wife. And I wanted to show her off … I thought I was in control,” he explained. 

Once Dorit joined the Housewives cast, things were great – at least at first. 

“That show was fun until it wasn’t,” he said. “I was blind to what was going on, what was happening. I didn’t act soon enough.”

Gradually, the dynamics both onscreen and off changed. 

“It’s very toxic. It’s got worse,” he said, pointing to social media as a major challenge. Meanwhile, manipulative editing has given people the wrong idea about him, he said. 

“It’s not my life. It’s a TV show that shows snippets of my life with Dorit, based on the premise of the show,” the businessman said. “And they cut it, they edit, they show things. They allow storylines, that even the producers know are not true, to grow, because that’s the brilliance of the show.”

“Being on that show is a lot of pressure and they now pay a lot of money,” he added. “And you’ve got to give the audience what they want.” 

‘RHOBH’ alum admits he ‘drove the bus into the wall’ 

In hindsight, PK wonders if he’d still be with Dorit if he hadn’t pressured her to join RHOBH. 

“I’m not blaming that show [for] my divorce or my relationship or who I think Dorit is now versus who I think she was, or who I am now,” he said. “I think the biggest question that I have that will never be answered is that, is Dorit where she was always going to be and always going to end up, or was I responsible for putting her in that world and then that world created what happened now?”

Now, PK looks back with fondness on his and Dorit’s life pre-reality TV. 

“Life was pretty f*cking good,” he said of their time living in New York City as new parents to their son, Jagger. “Who drove the bus into the wall? Me. Much like I had done many times in my life.”

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