My personal favorite show on Bravo’s lineup is back for an astounding second season. After its ascendancy in 2024 from new kid on the block to crown jewel in Bravo’s millennial programming, The Valley’s stacked cast has proven they’re anything but underdogs living in the shadow of the late, great Vanderpump Rules.
And what a cast it is! Familiar faces like Brittany Cartwright and Kristen Doute join ranks with their friends in the San Fernando Valley — friends like Janet, Nia, Jasmine and more — to kick up a truly wild ruckus. But among those friends, none have brought the chaos quite like Kristen and Brittany’s bestie, Zack Wickham. From dinner party meltdowns to chaotic Instagram posts to a Monster Energy drink fridge in his kitchen, there are few characters in Bravo’s extended universe as entertaining as Zack right now. He knows it, I know it, Bravo certainly knows it, and Janet knows it too. That’s probably why she still has her wrap dresses in a twist over him on the after show.
As the cast trip to Santa Barbara imploded on television, PAPER sat down with Wickham to talk shop.
How is watching the show feeling the second time around?
The second season, you know, you feel like you’re going to be more prepared, or that you’ve already done it once. Then you start recording again, and you’re like, Oh, I forgot! You just forget everything. And you just dive right back into it.
Obviously, you’ve been a little bit in the hot seat the first couple episodes. Going back in, were you feeling nervous, scared? Take me back to last summer.
If you sign up for a reality show and think that you can be a private person, or that anything that you’ve done isn’t going to come out… you’re crazy. You should just not sign up or get out of it right now. I’m the person that lives my life fully open. I knew that we were going to have to talk about some uncomfortable subjects that maybe happened off camera, but in the end, I’m always ready for that.
Viewers are getting to see a lot more of you than the first season, especially your personal life with your relationship. How did you feel opening up another part of your life to the cameras?
I’m really excited for everybody to get to meet my boyfriend, and also to get to see a side of me that you haven’t yet. Even though there is a lot of tumultuousness with his visa situation, I’m excited to share it with the audience. And luckily, I just happened to be dating someone that was like, wait, you want me to be on a show? I was like, well, just film with me. I promise it’ll be okay. I do feel like I kind of threw him to the wolves and didn’t give him enough heads up. But he always likes to say he’s just in the background eating, because that’s what he’s basically doing at every event. Besides Kristen, Brittany and Jasmine, he hadn’t met anybody before, so he didn’t know anybody to even have those conversations. But now, he’s been through it. He’s got an extra year under his belt. So season three, I’m sure you’ll get to see a lot more of him, too.
You can always tell when a boyfriend or girlfriend comes in wanting a camera, and when one comes in just being like, What is going on around here?
That’s what I feel is so special about our relationship. I did meet him before season one aired, so he didn’t even know I was on a show. He also doesn’t watch TV, and I don’t just mean reality TV. I’m like, dude, you have to watch more, but he’s been really busy with school and stuff. Honestly, all of his references are pre-2021, maybe even then, they’re a little spotty. So having him come in and not know or care made it a lot more authentic, because he’s not trying to do anything. He does not care whatsoever about being on TV or wanting the spotlight. He’s there for the right reasons.
You and Kristen’s relationship is very special to the viewers. As you probably know, she’s someone who has had quite a journey on television and has been through such highs and lows.
I’ve lived in LA nine years. I have known her since probably month two of living there. And from the moment I met her, she was the greatest friend to everybody, including myself. And then over the years, we grew closer, like a few years into me living in LA, and then once COVID hit, we were inseparable. I don’t know what I would do in LA without her. We are carbon copies of each other. We’re very much the same… crazy, if you will, but in the best way possible.
I’m sure you were among the first to know that she was pregnant. How did you feel? And how excited are you for her to have this motherhood journey unfold?
I honestly could not be happier for her. She’s wanted this and been really trying. And, you know, it’s a journey. It was not easy, and to see someone who wanted it so bad get everything she wanted — I couldn’t be happier.
Side note: Can you please tell me the story of the Monster energy drink fridge in your kitchen?
Number one, I would like to shout out the production team, because they got that cleared so easily. I was like, did Monster just immediately say yes? But they did, which is amazing, because I was like, what am I going to do? I would have to literally cover up the logo, it would make it very hard. But it’s actually one of my prized possessions. I got it in 2020, during the pandemic. There were a lot of convenience stores going out of business or whatever. I got it for like $200 and it was brand new when I got it, and when we looked it up, it was $1,600. I like energy drinks, Diet Coke, I have Celsius, then all your mixers for your drinks. I love it, and it’s such a cool, fun thing to have.
There’s this time capsule effect that the show creates, where you film, and things get wrapped up and discussed, and then you have this big chunk of time to go about your rest of your lives off camera, and then all of this gets resurrected. Has that been challenging for you at all?
It’s a little challenging in the fact that you have to relive basically every situation week to week. This season was a little different, because when Nia and Kristen got pregnant, they had to move up our reunion as everybody knows. Everybody’s like, what? Why are they having it after episode three?
I was curious about this, but please continue.
It’s because they’re pregnant, and obviously they have to be at the reunion. There’s no way you can have a reunion without them. So it was like, do you want to have it after you have the baby? Absolutely not. Like, who wants to do that, you know? So take an entire season of emotions, of ups and downs, and then condense it. You go through all of them, and then you have the reunion. I’m not gonna lie, it was very, very hard to be able to do it. I’m glad it’s done and we can move forward. And sometimes it does suck because it brings up stuff you’ve already really healed from, and then you have to talk about it, and it makes that emotion raw again. But luckily, I think we all understand — well, some of us understand — that we should move on to the next thing instead of rehashing the past. But some of us can’t.
With the reunion, did you feel excited that you got the seal of approval? Because a lot of viewers wanted one the first season.
It’s exactly like you said, it’s a seal of approval.”Your show is a hit, you’re doing something, right.” And so that was great. I will say, I came into this reunion, like, let’s go! I was like Muhammad Ali, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” But unfortunately, I should have actually asked Kristen and Brittany, definitely not Jax, but Kristen and Brittany. “What are some tips? Or, what is it like?” Because I just had an assumption of how it would play out, and it is much different than what I thought. So that was a little overwhelming. But in general, I had a great day at the reunion, and for the next reunion, I will be ready.
The show being a hit is such an important narrative this season, outside of the show itself. You guys had a legacy that you were being compared against. I know people who never even watched Vanderpump Rules that are tuning into The Valley. It’s garnered its own separate audience. How does that feel?
I mean, anytime you’re being compared to another franchise, because you’re a spin-off, it’s hard. Because you aren’t the same as what you’re being compared to. We only had three of the same people, and we have 12 people, so it’s not like it was going to be a carbon copy of that. I think that I’m very lucky that people gave us a chance, and I think that having Vanderpump Rules as our lead in did help, because then people are like, “Oh, well, I’m already here watching Vanderpump Rules, so I’ll watch The Valley.” Because we are such a great group, and people really got invested in us individually, they stayed. That is really a testament to how our group is, because we’re all crazy in our own ways. It makes good television, because we are all dramatic. We all are our own characters and personalities — some of the hugest personalities are on this cast. Let’s be real! Somehow it all works together. But what’s so funny is, before the show even started, we were this dramatic off camera. If I even remotely began to explain the situations that have happened the two years prior, or seven years prior, to us being on camera, you’d be like, why weren’t cameras on you all seven years ago, eight years ago? It really is that crazy. Bravo did the right thing by putting the cameras on us, and we did the rest.
If I could give a note to Alex Baskin, it’s that people love feeling like they’re being inserted into a friend group. Because everyone watching these shows are nosy, right? Humans love to gossip! When it’s a bunch of people that don’t really seem like they know each other off camera, it can feel like, “What are we watching?” On that note, going back to season one and then now, have you formed relationships, or deepened relationships, you wouldn’t have expected? Were relationships tested in ways that surprised you?
Oh, absolutely. We are all friends off camera. We hang out all the time. It’s not like the Housewives, or some of these other shows, where it’s like, “Okay, we’re done now.” These are people I see every single day, whether we’re filming or not, and it’s funny, because my friends back home, before the show, they’d be like: Why are you guys so dramatic? Like, what is wrong with you? So I knew going in that we would have the perfect amount of drama for it.
But when you’re on camera and when you have to go through these scenarios that maybe you wouldn’t have to go through outside of filming a show, it can test relationships. Like season one, Kristen is my best friend. Brittany, obviously, is my best friend too, but Kristen and I are with each other 24/7. Our relationship was really tested, and some stuff went down season one. But through it all, it strengthened our relationship and made us even closer. And season two, it’s the same with Brittany. There were some things going on, and Brittany and I were on very rocky ground, but coming out of it, and hopefully going into season three… well, we haven’t been picked up yet.
Let’s be serious…
Okay, good. I’m glad you’re with me.
I have a few more questions. It’s interesting watching you and Jasmine on the show. I say this with love, because I relate to you most on the show, being a girl who doesn’t really know heterosexual drama like that. I feel like there’s a fish out of water element with both of you sometimes, being around these straight married people with kids. Did you feel that at all, being in the group?
This is just what our friend group is, and so it makes the most sense. It’s kind of funny, because I’m always with Kristen, and I always joke that I’m going to burn her ally card if she doesn’t come out with me to at least one pride event.
She would shut the party down! The gays would go crazy if Kristen showed up.
Trust me, I know! I know! But obviously, I feel like this group, what makes it so special, is it’s almost like a view into how millennials are at our age. How we’ve grown up, to where its mainly straight people, but also gay and lesbians, and you get this dynamic, and diversity, that you might not have in other generations. We’re really getting to highlight what makes our group so special, and the fact that there’s diversity, and you can have me being single and not having kids, them having kids, it still works out. They still want to party, and I still will go to the kid’s birthday. So it’s really cool. I think it’s the most special part, that you get to see how we’re all the same, and we can all relate. It’s a very special millennial type of view that you haven’t seen in a show like this before.
Especially at a time when things feel so segmented. Now, I have one last question I have been dying to ask you since season one —
— Please don’t ask me about my hair, I swear!
No, I think you might be eager to answer this question. It’s not really about you, but one of those moments from season one my friends and I still talk about is Janet in the woods on the girls trip, acting like you were a serial killer. [Laughs] I’m sorry, I’m laughing, which is so unprofessional, but it was hilarious! How did it feel to watch that back, seeing how heightened her emotions were?
I don’t feel like it was edited to be any more heightened dramatically than it was. That’s how she feels. She feels that way about a lot of things. I would say she takes things maybe to the extreme. I probably shouldn’t even be saying this, but afterwards, when we joke about it, I’m like, you made it seem and feel like I was literally in the woods. I’m not gonna lie, I almost… me and Kristen almost did a photo shoot with pine trees. We went as far as to find out where pine trees were in LA, so that we could go film next to them. Also, oh, I shouldn’t be whatever. I can’t say that. Okay, well, maybe I can. Can I say something from behind this? Well, something that we just thought about but didn’t do, sure. I did tell Jasmine, hey, go print out a picture of me and put it in a tree. She didn’t do it, obviously, and we laughed about it.
This is incredible, thank you.
Also, I did turn off my location, because we all share locations. Not me and Janet, but Scheana, Kristen, Brittany, Jasmine, Nia. I think those are the only ones, enough that people would know. I was like, I know exactly what Janet is gonna do. She’s gonna say, “Where’s his location?” So I turned off my location before I posted my story, because I knew they would look and then they’d be like, “Oh, he doesn’t have his location on.” Then that would heighten everything. So in essence, I did know what I was doing, but it was all in good fun. The thing is, Janet and I have been very close for a long time, we’ll go through ups and downs, and we’ve been down for a while. But that doesn’t mean we won’t go up again.
Photos courtesy of Bravo
