Kyle Richards and Kathy Hilton’s Ups and Downs Over the Years

Kathy Hilton kept her distance from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills until season 11, but that didn’t mean her rocky relationship with Kyle Richards wasn’t a topic of discussion on the Bravo series. When RHOBH premiered in 2010, Kyle was joined by sister Kim Richards — and by the end of the season, the siblings were at odds after the Halloween actress outed her sister as an alcoholic. Kathy, for her part, later revealed she was in shock over their tense limo fight. "Paris [Hilton] and I watched that. We broke down," she recalled on SiriusXM’s "Lunch With Bruce” podcast in October 2021. “You know when you cry and you're shaking and your lip starts to quiver and 'my mommy's not there and there's no one' — it's like, I felt helpless and alone. Paris was crying too." As Kyle and Kim’s ups and downs continued to air on the show, the Little House on the Prairie alum’s relationship with Kathy hit another bump when their husbands had a business falling out. "My husband for years worked for my brother-in-law. Then he went off on his own like people do," Kyle explained during a 2018 episode of RHOBH, referring to Mauricio Umansky launching The Agency in 2011 after more than a decade with Rick Hilton’s Hilton & Hyland company. "That doesn't always work well in the family dynamic, and it can complicate things. I love my sisters a lot. It's very complicated." In 2015, Kyle began developing American Woman, which was loosely inspired by their late mother, Kathleen Richards. When the show aired in 2018, she revealed that one of the reasons her relationship with Kathy was in a bad place was because of the series. “[My relationship with Kathy] is not great,” Kyle said on the season 8 reunion of RHOBH, admitting that they hadn’t spoken in six months due to American Woman. “I told her all the time, I said, ‘I’m not sharing your stories or Kim‘s — these are my own stories.’ And not only that, it’s a fictionalized version of our life, and our mom being a single mom in the ’70s is the jumping-off point.” After a lengthy estrangement with Rick, Umansky revealed in October 2019 that the whole family was on better terms. “We’re good. We’ve made up, we’re family,” he told Inman when asked about his relationship with Kathy’s husband. “The families have made up. We’ve been good for over a year. We were definitely in a fight for a while. And it was real. But the families have made up and it was fantastic. We’ve been good for solidly over a year.” The following year, Kathy officially started filming RHOBH in a “friend” role, and during season 11, fans got more insight into the family dynamics. “Kyle and I have had our ups and downs, and if my mom was still here, it never would’ve happened,” Kathy explained to Variety in 2021. “We wouldn’t have fallen out. It was frustrating because I think I could’ve had a platform if I wanted one, but I chose to keep silent. We started to put the pieces back together a couple years ago. I had a little birthday dinner for her here at the house. I started to see what I was missing out on with my nieces. Nothing should ever come between sisters. It was heartbreaking to me, and my husband could see that.” Scroll through for a complete timeline of the family drama:

Kathy has made it clear that she wasn’t a fan of how Kyle treated Kim during season 1 of the Bravo hit, which aired in 2010. "I didn't watch [RHOBH] because I was so hurt at what happened that first season and I didn't speak to my sister for a long time,” Kathy recalled on "Lunch With Bruce” in October 2021.

Umansky launched The Agency in 2011 after working with Rick for 14 years. His decision to go off on his own fueled the tension between Kyle and her sisters.

As the real estate feud between Umansky and Rick continued, Kyle’s spouse was not welcome at Nicky Hilton’s 2015 wedding. While the Halloween Kills star previously revealed on RHOBH that she was “told it would be better if I didn't come to the wedding,” she ended up attending the nuptials with daughters Farrah and Portia.

“Family dynamics can be very complicated and my family can be no exception," Kyle said during a season 5 episode in 2015. “I don’t even know how to describe the relationship between me and my sisters right now. … It’s just really bad.”

American Woman aired for one season in 2018 before it was canceled. "I hope when Kathy sees the show, she'll understand," Kyle said in an interview while promoting the show. "I would never tell anyone else's stories. And I felt bad because she thought it was something that it wasn't. I was inspired by my mom being a single mom in the '70s. It was a crazy, fun, reckless time. But it's not based on my actual life."

“At the end of the day, time heals everything,” Umansky told Inman in October 2019 about his relationship with his wife’s family. “Eventually when you put family together for different events — Christmas, Thanksgiving, a birthday party — time eventually heals it. And I think that’s what happened with us. And thank God.”

While Kyle and Kathy got along during filming of RHOBH season 11, which aired in 2021, they shared an emotional moment about their falling out during an August episode. The two women got choked up again while discussing the scene.

"I think there's a part of me that was very much holding things in like that, don't you think?" Kathy said. "And when you can stand back and look at yourself by having this on the show like that, if it can help more people pick up the phone or just be more vulnerable and not waste time and a relationship. Because we did, we wasted a lot of time."

In the trailer for season 12 of RHOBH, which dropped in April 2022, Kyle cries to Kathy. “I feel like you hate me or something,” she says to her big sister.

During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen in April 2022, Garcelle Beauvais claimed she was closer to Kathy than Kyle at the moment, confirming things take a turn during season 12 for the sisters.

Kathy reflected on her decision to join the show ahead of the highly anticipated Aspen episodes.

“Well, when she asked me finally to be on the show, I thought, ‘Oh, you know what? It would be fun spending some time together. We're in the middle of COVID, it's boring. I can put makeup on and get dressed up and go out a little. It was fun,” she told Us at Tessa and Barron Hilton’s baby shower.

Kathy added that she and Kyle haven’t worked out a plan to avoid rehashing the past drama when their fight airs.

“That is a big problem because when you start watching the reunion and you see and hear what people are saying about you, it can be upsetting,” she explained. “I haven't because you never think that you're really going to have to do that, and I think that everybody likes to keep the show fresh and if we start talking about things, that changes.”

In his memoir, The Dealmaker, Umansky further detailed the tension between the families that arose after he left Rick's company in 2011. “He and Kathy held tremendous anger toward us, which is not the way I choose to live my life,” Umansky claimed. “Naturally, Kyle was very hurt by their reaction, and it was a difficult pill for her to swallow.”

The Buying Beverly Hills star went on to allege that Rick refused to make him a "full partner," which is why he decided to start his own company. “So, I went home to Kyle and told her what had happened,” the Netflix star wrote. “She agreed with me that it was very unjust. But ultimately it didn’t matter what we thought. In my opinion, Rick wasn’t going to change his mind, and he wasn’t prepared to pay me what I’d earned.”

After Umansky left Rick's firm, Rick allegedly stopped speaking to Kyle and her husband. “And of course his wife, Kathy — Kyle’s sister — did the same,” Umansky wrote. “They cut all communication and no longer invited us to Thanksgiving dinners or other holidays.”

By June of that year, Kyle and Kathy had reconciled — coincidentally in Aspen — when celebrating their niece Whitney Davis’ wedding. The following month, Kyle announced that she and Mauricio had split. Kathy weighed on the separation months later. 

“There’s no way Kyle would’ve gone this far unless she really thought about it,” Kathy said on Today in November.

While Kyle and Kathy’s issues were seemingly behind them, the discord between Umansky and the Hiltons played out during season 2 of Netflix’s Buying Beverly Hills.

“I think I got kind of f–ked by Hilton and Hyland,” Umansky said in a preview released in March. “And when I say f–ked, you know like today, I’m happy. But, there were 100 agents at Hilton and Hyland. They did $1 billion for the first time a year. I was 19.6 percent of their production.”

Umansky claimed that he told Rick that he would “really like equity” in the firm, adding that he was “basically” told “no.” Umansky went to on say that he and Kyle discussed how leaving the real estate firm could impact things with Kathy.

“Then I went home and I talked to Kyle. I go, ‘This is really going to cause a lot of stress between you and your sister and your family. And I don’t want to do this move of leaving and starting a company if you’re not comfortable,’” he added. “She was 100 percent supportive.”

Umansky concluded: “And then I remember they said to me, ‘How did you not give us any warning or any issue?’ And I was like, ‘Warning?’”

Kathy reflected on her experience filming The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills with her sister ahead of the premiere of season 15.

“We were like little girls together and having fun and laughing, and I pulled some pranks on her,” Kathy shared on the July 23 episode of SiriusXM’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “We just laughed and had a really good time.”

As for previous seasons when things got a little tense, Kathy suggested that the show makes things bigger than they actually are.

“I will say that it all gets exaggerated too,” she explained. “I'll read things four hours ago: ‘Kathy and Kyle are still not getting along.’ What?”