Next Level Basic

The Definitive Basic Bitch Handbook

Stassi Schroeder

• Publisher: Gallery Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781982112479
• eBook ISBN: 9781982112486
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies

Discover how to embrace your best basic self in this instant New York Times bestselling, laugh-out-loud hilarious, and “refreshing to read” (The Cut) guidebook from the breakout star of Bravo’s hit reality show Vanderpump Rules.

Millions of Vanderpump Rules viewers and podcast listeners know Stassi Schroeder as a major defender of Basic Bitch rights. There’s nothing more boring than people who take themselves too seriously. Stassi champions the things that many of us are afraid to love publicly for fear of being labeled basic: lattes, pugs, bubbly cocktails, millennial pink, #OOTD (outfit of the day, obvs), astrology, hot dogs, the perfect pair of Louboutins, romantic comedies...the list goes on and on.

“There’s something for everyone under Schroeder’s big basic umbrella” (Elle) and in Next Level Basic, the reality star, podcast queen, and ranch dressing expert gives you hilarious and pointed lessons on how to have fun and celebrate yourself, with exclusive stories from her own life and on the set of Vanderpump Rules. From her very public breakups to her most intimate details about her plastic surgery, Stassi shares her own personal experiences with her trademark honesty—all with the hope you can learn something from them.

SECTION II

Committed AF

CHAPTER 5

Basic Breakups

If there’s one thing that unites us all in basicness, it’s breakups. Even if you’ve never been the dumpee and you are a serial dumper, it hurts (unless you’re a sadist, and I’ve def dated a few of those). Women love to bond over breakups, usually after midnight in the bathroom at a club or bar, when we’re wasted and on the verge of drunk-texting the exact ex we are bitching about. I mean, the odds of me going into a public bathroom at night and not hearing two girls chat about fuckboys are slim. I’ve talked to total strangers in the bathroom about my deepest, darkest feelings after a breakup. From the bathrooms at Les Deux to Goa to Hyde (ah, those were the days; twenty-one years old and carefree AF), I have bonded with people over a breakup. It’s like a rite of passage or a cultural phenomenon, and it is basic AF. I’m thirty and it’s still happening. I bet ninety-year-old women in nursing homes are still talking about this shit. It never ends.

As for me, I’ve had some pretty public breakups. From Jax to Patrick to the guy who tried to sell a sex tape of me to TMZ, I’ve had people I have never met gossiping and tweeting about what happened to my relationships, which is pretty weird. Because it’s so public, people on social media are always asking me how I get over breakups—or how to get over their own. It’s the number one topic I get asked about. Like this question:

“I’m in a toxic on-and-off relationship and we fight all the time. How do you know when to call it quits?”

Or this:

“What are the top things that should be nonnegotiable in a relationship? Or top things that make a healthy relationship?”

Or this:

“What’s the best way to meet a boyfriend? Friends? Apps? Work? Bars?”

But while it’s universal and it’s basic to sit around and bond over breakups, we all deal with them differently. And I am no relationship expert or breakup guru, even though I feel like some of my breakups have been pretty extreme, so I’ve learned some solid lessons from them. Take Jax. He cheated on me, so I retaliated by changing his Twitter handle to “Mrs. Stassi Schroeder” (it was easy to figure out his password because guys are lazy AF and pick passwords like 123456). After the Twitter sabotage, I keyed his car. I have legit keyed a few cars in my life as revenge after a breakup. I actually keyed one boyfriend’s car right in front of him, and he ended up trying to sue me but I was broke at the time, so every time he’d call and try to get a confession out of me I’d just lie. I mean, he’s the one who cheated, right? Plus, I was drunk when I keyed his car, obviously. No one is out there soberly keying cars to get even after a breakup.

Before we started filming the first season of Vanderpump Rules, I said that my worst nightmare would be to go through a breakup on camera. I actually knew that Jax and I weren’t going to work out, but I promised myself that I would just stay with him until filming was over to spare myself the humiliation. That is until a week into filming. I found out off camera one morning that Jax had cheated on me and might have gotten a girl pregnant in Vegas. I immediately started texting him and all my friends. I was sobbing, hyperventilating, and literally throwing up in my toilet. On the show, there is a scene where Katie, Kristen, and some other friends all come over and we end up drinking Jax’s Cristal champagne ($200 champs!!) out of Solo cups. That was one of the most intense scenes I’ve ever filmed because the scene was never supposed to happen. I was not even scheduled to film that day. I was sitting there, no makeup on, in my pj’s, sobbing—and the producers must have found out what was happening because all of a sudden they came bursting through my door with the camera crew! At first I was furious, but then I quickly realized that I had signed up for this. I dare anyone to try to say this show is scripted. It couldn’t be more real.

Next there were the Patrick breakup(s), which were beyond bad. We were always on-again, off-again, and for a long time he refused to go on Vanderpump and would say things like, “I could never be with someone who would do a show like that.” So like an idiot I quit the show for a while and gave up my job and my friends for him. After a while during one of our off periods I was like, “I just tossed my job and friends aside for you and I’m still miserable! I am going back to the show and getting my life back and my friends back.” And I did. Eventually he agreed to go on the show and he did like five episodes, which are hard for me to watch now because it’s like I was brainwashed and didn’t know how to stick up for myself. Like I couldn’t even form sentences because I was walking on eggshells all the time. You’d think he would have been on his best behavior on camera and that it would be easy not to be a condescending prick for a few minutes, but he managed to look like an asshole every single time. It’s pretty amazing.

I was too far in it to realize his full degree of assholeness, and so as a thank-you for going on the show I booked a Mexican vacation for our four-year anniversary. But like I already told you, he broke up with me on our anniversary, so I went to Mexico with my friends instead and I cried, drank piña coladas, and took Xanax, so I don’t remember a lot of the vacation. I didn’t key his car when I got back, but I did get into Patrick’s Twitter account to revoke his “verified” status by changing his Twitter handle. Sadly, Patrick managed to get his status reinstated. When you find yourself wanting to know someone’s password, you know you’re about to go down a deep dark rabbit hole, so I never want to go to that place again. Plus, it gives them reason to blame you even though they fucked up. Like after Jax and I broke up, his guy friends would defend him and I would be like, “He cheated on me!” And they would say, “But you changed his Twitter handle!” Like it’s the same thing. So basically you lose in the end.

The worst breakup advice I’ve ever heard is “get even,” because it can sometimes land you in jail, let’s be real. Keying a car maybe felt good in the moment, but it just made me feel pathetic the next day, so it was totes not worth it. I wanted to get even with the guy who tried to sell the sex tape of me, because it was one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me. I found out about it the day I moved to New York City, in 2014. The plane landed and I had text messages from Lisa Vanderpump and our producer Alex Baskin saying Call me 911. My heart literally fell into my asshole (I’m sure that’s medically possible, because I felt it), and when I found out this ex was trying to sell TMZ a tape of me masturbating, I fell on the floor of JFK crying. People probably thought I was losing my mind, which I kind of was. For real, it was one of the most frightening things that’s ever happened to me (much scarier than doors slamming in the Los Feliz murder house). My agent and lawyer told me to ignore the guy and to not say anything about it on social media, but he started showing up at my old apartment and scaring my ex-roommate. Then he asked Lisa Vanderpump for $900 to not release the tape, and I was like, $900?? That’s all I’m worth?! What kind of amateur extortionist only asks for $900? But he got his money, and I never heard from him again.

So like I said, I am not a breakup expert, but I have learned a few basic lessons over the years that might help if you find yourself pouring your heart out to a total stranger about your breakup at midnight in a public bathroom, or wanting to smash the windshield of someone’s car with a baseball bat like Beyoncé because they cheated on you, or having a meltdown in JFK because a crazy ex is trying to sell a gossip site a tape of you masturbating. You know, normal breakup stuff. So to help you avoid some of these pitfalls, here are a few ways I’ve learned to cope over the years (that are healthier than vandalism or social media revenge).

Next Level Basic Tips: HOW TO MOVE ON FROM A BREAKUP

ALLOW YOURSELF TO FREAKING FEEL IT

The best breakup advice I’ve ever gotten is to let yourself feel your feelings. Basically I cry a fuck-ton, and feel really, really sorry for myself for as long as it takes to move on (in my case, usually a few weeks). I also surround myself with friends but then demand they go home at a decent hour so I can cry again all by myself and let it all out. I hate it when people tell you to “buck up” when what you really need to do is wallow and hard-core mourn and become a degenerate for a while. It helps, and it’s healthy. So I say wallow if you wanna.

HIRE A BREAKUP NANNY

After my breakup with Patrick, I literally paid my childhood friend Alex Stafford to come stay with me and take care of me like a nurse-caretaker-babysitter-therapist. She is legit a saint—Saint Alex—because she took care of my dogs, paid my bills, cleaned my place, took my car to the shop, let me sleep until noon, and then woke me up with a Diet Dr Pepper in hand and let me watch whatever cheesy movies I wanted to watch. And she fed me—sometimes literally putting food into my mouth as if I were a big, brokenhearted, pizza-eating baby. I was like Mariah Carey on crack, and she was my most loyal diligent assistant. It worked out for Alex, not just because I paid her but because she ended up loving Los Angeles so m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Section I: Basic AF
• Section II: Committed AF
• Section III: Hot AF
• Section IV: Eat, Drink, and Be Enlightened AF
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright