Lisa Rinna reunited with her Melrose Place co-stars, Daphne Zuniga, Laura Leighton, and Courtney Thorne-Smith, to discuss their time working together on the scandalous ’90s drama.
During an episode of the Still the Place podcast, Rinna revealed she “did not” audition for her role as Taylor McBride on Melrose Place. In fact, she wasn’t the original actress cast in the role.
Casting controversy:
“This is interesting. I don’t know if you’ll remember, but they had cast another actress to play Taylor McBride. [That actress] was Hunter Tylo. She happened to be pregnant.”
“If you remember, they felt that this character of Taylor McBride would not … it wouldn’t behoove them to cast a pregnant woman.”
“Cut to, of course, the lawsuit that [Hunter Tylo] filed and a $5M lawsuit.”
Never forget …
Hunter won the lawsuit against Melrose Place’s executives. “Heather [Locklear] and I had to go testify. And we were both pregnant. We were both pregnant on that witness stand.”
“We had to go and testify on the side of [Aaron] Spelling.”
Heather and I “were subpoenaed. And I’ll just never forget that I was just, I don’t even know if they knew I was pregnant.”
“Heather was much more, I mean, she was like very pregnant. And I had just gotten pregnant.”
Rinna admitted, “I can’t remember,” if production knew she was pregnant. “I’m sure they knew at the time.”
Sloppy seconds?
“The irony of it was, I was pregnant” and replacing an actress for being pregnant.
“Whenever you get a role that somebody else lost, it never really feels 100 percent good. Even though this was a big break for me to get this role, I got it under circumstances that didn’t feel clean.”
The former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills personality continued, “I didn’t audition for it. I just said, well, I was with Joan Green at the time. She’s the manager of Heather [and Josie Bissett].”
“Next thing I know, I’m playing this role. It just never felt completely clean because of the circumstance.”
