Vanderpump Rulesstar Jax Taylor lied and cheated his way to reality-TV fame.
But he swears hes different now.
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If you know one thing about Jax Taylor, you know that he lies.
He feels easy to trust.
Taylors ability to lie with gusto helped buildVanderpump Rulesinto a reality-TV powerhouse in which anything felt possible.
This coming July, the West Hollywood bartender will turn 40.
Maybe, this time, the change will stick.
You lived in Ohio, youre the pretty one in Ohio.
Youre all the same.
Everybodys the same.You should be an actress in Hollywood.
Youre pretty.Next thing you know, youre a waitress for 20 years, you know?
The tangent seems non sequitur, until it does not.
He went to Macomb Community College before quitting school and joining the Navy as a seaman recruit.
Afterward he modeled, living for moments in New York, Miami, and Milan.
At 26, he arrived in L.A..
He was told again and again by producers that hed get his break.
For seven years, it never came.
Eventually, Taylor took a job as a bartender at SUR to pay the bills.
But Schroeder convinced him to talk with Vanderpump about the show she was pitching to Bravo executives.
Hed been screwed again and again by Hollywood; he was tired of it all.
He was like, This town sucks and theres no honor amongst thieves.
I think his fuck jar was empty.
Bravos Andy Cohen knew right away that the connection had something special in Taylor.
This was May 2012, seven months before the first season ofVanderpump Rulespremiered.
They small-talked for a moment before Cohen went on with his night.
According to Cohen, it was what he heard later that gave him a window into Taylors potential.
It was a perfect lie, meant to create chaos within the friend group.
Like, why was I paying all this attention to Jax?
Cohen recalls, laughing.
But Im telling you, it happened.
(Taylor, for what its worth, says he doesnt know if thats 100 percent true.)
We were already a group of friends, Taylor says.
you oughta not like her.
you’re gonna wanna pretend to like him.
We put together a flow chart with arrows going in all sorts of directions, Baskin says, laughing.
It was super messy and complicated in the best possible way.
But no characters past was richer, or more unlikely, than Taylors.
His 20s are a potpourri of incredibly far-fetched details and anecdotes.
He lied to me and told me he was a Navy SEAL.
He was not, Schroder says.
But there are parts that you think couldnt possibly be true that all of sudden become confirmed.
Taylor had been bit by Hollywood and was ready to take advantage of an honest-to-goodness break.
He was 32 years old and knew how rare a real chance was in this town.
Hecouldnt actand was sick of modeling, but he was born for reality TV.
), has softened the once-impetuous wild card.
He is a liar, but a radically transparent one.
Even as he successfully deceives, the truth of his motivations shows through.
When he lies, he lies authentically, Baskin says.
He lies because that is his natural response, so it is a true-to-character lie.
The promise of reality TV, rarely delivered, is the unfiltered real.
Taylor is far from trustworthy in a relationship oraround expensive sunglasses, but he delivers truth on screen.
Taylor believes he gets so much leeway because his dishonesty isnt mean-spirited, and theVanderpumpproducers agree.
Yet Taylor will never be confused for a mastermind, so it rarely feels conniving.
That fact, along with his charisma, is why he says his friends andVanderpump-heads still stand by him.
I do a lot of fucked up shit.
Thats a hundred percent true.
But Im not mean.
I dont set out to hurt you.
Theres no what do you call that?
Im not malicious, Taylor says.
Im a pretty silly, funny, outgoing guy.
You know, I do a lot of fucked up shit, but so what?
I dont hurt anybody.
No ones ever got pregnant.
No ones ever gotten divorced.
We all do dumb shit.
Im not gonna walk around and be walking on thin ice all my life.
I do dumb stuff.
But as his ex, Schroeder felt the more poisonous end of Taylors impulsivity and untruth.
Though he actually had, Taylor gaslit Schroeder, persuading everyone that she was delusional.
When someones a really great liar, you believe everything.
He would cry, he would literally cry.
So how could you not believe a grown man who is crying?
Even my truth isnt as good as his lie.
Schroeder spent the shows first season alienated by her friends, who backed Taylor.
When the show aired, it was Schroeder who was cast asVanderpumps villain.
And yet, even she has managed to let Taylor back into her life.
Everyone is always like,How can you hang around that terrorist of a human being?
So you want to be around him even though hes done awful things.
Taylor owns his past transgressions as we talk over lunch.
He says hes different now, changed since his fathers passing in December 2017.
And Brittany single-handedly saved me and our relationship.
The couplesbreaking point arrived months later when it was revealed that Taylor had cheated with SUR waitress Faith Stowers.
He and Cartwright finally split in August 2017, but soon reconnected.
During an episode that aired in late February, the SUR staff had boys and girls nights apart.
It was an unexpected moment of transparency and of restraint, more than a bit bungled in execution.
It looked a lot like growth.
Even Schroeder has witnessed this evolution.
It was almost immediate, this incredible change and shift, she says.
I dont even know how to explain it; he isnt the same person he was before.
He got the sense smacked into him.
The Jax Taylor Experience through the first six years ofVanderpump Ruleswas the male model id unleashed.
Thats why watching him toe the line this season has been fascinating.
He became a reality star for his lack of inhibition and factual pliancy.
It felt brazen, or perhaps compulsive, but never false.
Its not the same Jax Taylor Experience, but it still feels true.
At the time, he was 26.
Only later, as I started to sift through the details, did the cracks begin to show.
How did he rush and then live in the house right away?
What was the final straw that led to his ouster?
Why didnt the producers or his ex-girlfriend know this story when I asked them about it?
It was a throwaway anecdote, but it felt revelatory.
So I began to dig.
Yes, this was almost 15 years ago.
Perhaps Taylor did live in some house for some time.
But why tell this specific story in this specific way in the first place?
Like so many SUR co-workers before me, I was chasing details of an aside by a known tall-talesman.
Id spent a week on the phone trying to debunk the detail because it befuddled me.
I could not for the life of me understand what was to gain from it.
In explaining his brand of dishonesty, Langworthy tells me, The present is very loud for Jax.
He is not too worried about,How am I gonna keep this going tomorrow?
Its created only to serve whatever story Taylors telling in his perpetual present.
At the time he told this one to me, I was rapt.
I watched him closely as he spoke.
As I chased the truth of it later, it became an irritation, but also a fascination.
And it kept me entertained.
