Camille Grammer caused a stir with her Real Housewives of Beverly Hills costars on Tuesday’s episode, staunchly defending Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh as he faced allegations of sexual assault.
During a tense dinner with castmates Lisa Rinna, Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave, Kyle Richards and Dorit Kemsley, the mother of two stood by Kavanugh’s side — explaining that she related to the judge because she had seen lies spread about her publicly following her contentious divorce from ex-husband Kelsey Grammer.
“I am very empathetic to women who have had this, but I’ve also been accused of things that I’ve never done,” Camille said. “This pisses me off. … When I went through my divorce, I was taken down. I was maligned. I was emotionally beaten down. It’s horrible to go through that when you’ve done a lot of good things in your life.”
She continued: “I empathize with what Brett Kavanaugh is going through. I’ve been in that position. I know what it’s like to be wrongfully accused and humiliated all over the world for lies. … It feels horrible to be in that position. I’ve been the victim of a smear campaign and it hurts.”
At the time the emotional scene was being filmed back in September, Kavanaugh was waiting to be confirmed for his lifelong seat on the nation’s highest court. The decision was stalled as the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to consider accusations from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who claimed that Kavanaugh pinned her down to a bed, groped her and tried to remove her clothes at a high school party in the early 1980s.
Kavanaugh denied the allegations and was eventually confirmed, but many in the nation, who were glued to their televisions at the time (including Rinna), were moved by Dr. Ford’s testimony.
“To see this woman put herself in such a vulnerable position, and yet people making fun of her? People not believing her? It’s really f—– up,” Rinna said on Tuesday’s RHOBH. “I think she’s changing everything with her courage.”
That inspired Camille, who was also very vocal about this on Twitter during the hearing, to speak out in Kavanaugh’s defense. “She didn’t have enough evidence,” Camille said of Dr. Ford. “When you are going to go up against the senate with something like that, you better have your witnesses lined up because that’s a very tough thing.”
Camille then revealed that she had been a victim of sexual assault when she was younger, using that fact to question why Dr. Ford had waited over three decades to bring her allegations forward.
“If you were at 15, you would tell your best friend or you would tell your parents,” Camille said. “I’m a victim too. I told my boyfriend, I told my mother, I told my therapist. I told people. I didn’t hold on to it for 35 years. She told her husband years after. It doesn’t make sense.”
Rinna didn’t agree with that point, nor did her friend Robin — who told the group that she was attacked when she was in 7th grade but didn’t speak about it until the #MeToo movement picked up speed.
“Do you not believe her though? Do you not believe this woman?” Rinna asked. “You don’t believe her for getting up in front of the f—ing world and telling this story, and not getting anything out of it, nothing? Camille, she’s a doctor! … He’s going to be a judge on our court for the rest of his f—ing life and that is a very big thing.”
“We don’t know if for sure it happened or not because it’s a he said, she said,” Camille responded. “Women should be heard do you believe that all doctors are right? Do you believe because somebody holds a PhD, they’re correct?”
RELATED: Christine Blasey Ford Speaks Out for First Time Since Kavanaugh Testimony
Asked by Mellencamp Arroyave how she would feel if her claims weren’t believed, Camille said, “That’s your prerogative.”
“This woman has some serious allegations and I feel bad for what him and his family are going through,” she added of Kavanaugh, later tearing up about it. “I feel bad for people. I don’t like when people do that kind of stuff.”
(It should be noted that Camille once accused her ex-boyfriend Dimitri Charalambopoulos of assaulting her, though as E! News reported, a grand jury did not indict him on felony assault charges.)
The conversation on RHOBH was eventually changed and the drama moved on. But it appeared to linger with Rinna, who questioned Camille’s comparison of her situation with Kelsey to that of Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford. “Camille comparing herself to Brett Kavanaugh is weird,” she said. “I know she has a f—ed up view of herself but this isn’t about you. It’s a much bigger thing.”
Perhaps that’s because, as fans learned later in the episode, Rinna’s mother Lois, 90, had nearly been a victim of sexual assault herself.
“A few years before I was born my mom was attacked by a man that she worked with. He picked her up at the bus stop and then all of a sudden he started to drive her down this really deserted road,” Rinna told audiences. “He tried to rape her. He tried to kill her. Luckily, a military policeman had seen them drive down this deserted road and he knew no one was supposed to be down there and he followed them down. My mom was saved that day by that military policeman.”
The man was allegedly David Joseph Carpenter, the infamous “Trailside Killer,” who was known for stalking and murdering several people on hiking trails in state parks near San Francisco, California in the 1970s. He raped and murdered at least five women and killed at least another five, with only one attempted victim surviving, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
His attempt to hurt Lois had sent him to jail for 7½ years, Rinna said on RHOBH. Carpenter, 88, was later convicted of some of his crimes and is currently serving life sentences in prison.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Lisa Rinna (@lisarinna) on Apr 16, 2019 at 7:21am PDT
Lois is The Star of #RHOBH tonight 9pm @bravotv 
#Gorgeous 
You don’t want to miss it! 
#MyMomIsAwesome #LOISis90It wasn’t until Rinna was older that her mother told her what really happened, Lois explaining that the metal plates she had in her head and the fact that she couldn’t smell was “because some kid hit you in the head with a hammer.”
“When I finally learned the truth, I had such great sadness and empathy for my mom, knowing that not only did this happen to her but that she basically just stuffed those feelings for how many years,” Rinna said. “She never dealt with it, she never talked about it — she never even told her daughter about it.”
“Because my mom didn’t tell me for so many years, seeing Dr. Ford get rung through the ringer touches me in such a deep way,” Rinna added. “It takes so much courage to come forward. I think the least we can do is show these victims some compassion.”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills airs Tuesdays (9 p.m. ET) on Bravo.
from PEOPLE.com http://bit.ly/2VMejtz
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