Off With My Head

Stassi Schroeder is a reality television personality best known as an original cast member of the Bravo series Vanderpump Rules, a show that followed the lives and drama of staff at Lisa Vanderpump's West Hollywood restaurant, SUR. Her memoir, written during her pregnancy and early months of motherhood, chronicles the collapse of her career in 2020, her simultaneous journey through pregnancy, and her efforts to reckon with the mistakes that led to her public cancellation.

Schroeder opens by describing how 2020 was supposed to be her best year. She was midway through a national podcast tour, finishing her second book, still starring on Vanderpump Rules, planning a fall wedding in Rome, and had sold the rights to her first book, Next Level Basic, for an animated series. The pandemic ended her tour abruptly in March, and three months later, past actions resurfaced that destroyed her career in seven days. She had already weathered controversy for a "Nazi chic" Instagram post, insensitive remarks about the #MeToo movement, and an "all lives matter" comment on a podcast, but this second cancellation proved far more devastating.

The catalyst was a resurfaced incident involving Faith Stowers, a former Vanderpump Rules cast member. Years earlier, Stowers had slept with Jax Taylor, a fellow cast member, while he was dating Brittany Cartwright, one of Schroeder's closest friends. Fellow cast member Kristen Doute received texts claiming Stowers had stolen from people and matched a woman in a surveillance photo. Schroeder and Doute called a police tip line, believing the woman might be Stowers, and never heard back. When the story resurfaced in 2020 amid a national reckoning on race, the consequences were swift. Schroeder acknowledges she acted on gossip rather than facts and failed to understand why Stowers, as a Black woman, experienced the police call as racially motivated, even though Schroeder's own motivation was defending Cartwright.

Over seven days, her professional life disintegrated. Sponsors dropped her. Her PR firm publicly terminated her contract hours after helping draft an apology that also required Bravo's approval. Her talent agency let her go after a Variety article made retaining her untenable. Bravo announced that Schroeder and Doute would not return to Vanderpump Rules. Her podcast company erased every episode of Straight Up with Stassi, tour venues canceled, and Sony terminated her animated series deal. Paparazzi surrounded her house, and trolls harassed her friends and family online, even calling her unborn child racist. At ten weeks pregnant, someone leaked her pregnancy to Us Weekly, robbing her of the private announcement she had planned. Schroeder describes issuing an Instagram apology she was pressured into releasing before she had fully processed the situation, and she regrets not waiting to write it on her own terms.

Despite this upheaval, Schroeder's pregnancy became her anchor. She had discovered she was pregnant on May 2, 2020, just before Cinco de Mayo. Her fiancé, Beau Clark, who had a career in casting, jokingly asked her to wait until after the holiday so they could enjoy margaritas. Forced into sobriety by pregnancy, she could not rely on alcohol or Xanax, which she admits to having used to cope during previous crises. She found substitute coping mechanisms: binge-watching Outlander, retreating to Pinterest as a troll-free social media space, listening to Christmas music year-round, baking, leaning on Clark's steady support, and finding comfort in her dogs. She credits pregnancy with preventing the reckless, alcohol-fueled spiraling she calls her "Dark Passenger," her term for the irrational person she becomes when drunk.

After weeks of anger, Schroeder hired a diversity coach named May Snowden and began weekly Zoom sessions studying cultural competence, Black history, unconscious bias, and systemic racism. She read So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo and watched assigned documentaries. Through this education, she arrived at a crucial realization: Just because the situation with Stowers was not about race for her does not mean it was not about race for Stowers. She recognizes her white privilege in never having had to consider the police as a threat and commits to raising her daughter with an awareness she herself lacked.

Schroeder reflects on her nearly decade-long career on Vanderpump Rules, from her first scene in 2013 through years of friendships and public embarrassments that defined her twenties. She had been outgrowing the show: she had not worked at SUR in six years, and the original cast had been planning a spin-off. When the firing came, she felt a small, unexpected sense of relief alongside the devastation, recognizing she likely would never have had the courage to leave on her own.

Her relationship with Clark forms another central thread. Schroeder traces how Doute tried for years to set them up during Schroeder's volatile relationship with an ex she nicknames "Manbun." They finally met at a fight-night party at Doute's house and began dating casually. Clark disappeared for a month; Schroeder assumed he was a typical "fuckboy," only to learn he had a full-body rash he feared was serious. The turning point came during Schroeder's first cancellation, which followed backlash over her remarks about the #MeToo movement: Clark arrived at her apartment with a children's book inscribed with an encouraging note and stayed up until 4 a.m. singing power ballads with her. She realized he was the empowering partner she had always wanted. When the 2020 cancellation devastated him professionally by association, he shut down emotionally for a month before they finally talked, cried together, and began planning their next steps.

The pandemic also derailed their Rome wedding. At seven months pregnant, Schroeder would not fit her dresses and could not drink Italian wine. Clark insisted they marry before the baby arrived, so during a small baby shower organized by Katie Maloney, Schroeder's close friend and Vanderpump Rules castmate, Clark arranged for an officiant to perform a surprise three-minute ceremony at Maloney's home. Approximately ten guests learned it was happening only when called outside. Schroeder wore a hundred-dollar maternity dress and embraced the imperfection.

After a difficult final stretch of pregnancy, including a terrifying week when an ultrasound revealed a hole in the baby's heart that turned out to be a common, self-resolving condition, Schroeder went past her due date. Her water broke on January 6, 2021. She showered, spray-tanned, and did her makeup during early contractions before heading to the hospital. She received an epidural, pushed for about forty-five minutes, and Hartford was born. Schroeder did not feel an instant bond and wants to normalize that experience for other mothers. After about two hours gazing into the baby's eyes, she became deeply attached.

Motherhood reshaped Schroeder's perspective. She softened toward her own mother, with whom she had a complicated, sometimes estranged relationship dramatized on the show, now understanding the intensity of maternal love. She and Clark launched a parenting podcast, The Good the Bad the Baby, as their path back to work. She rejects the concept of "having it all" as an unfair pressure on women, arguing that rock bottom recalibrated her definition of fulfillment from career highs and material goals to feeling safe, being in love, and having a healthy child.

The book closes with two sets of life lessons for Hartford: thirty-two written during Schroeder's pregnancy and eleven more added over a year later. The lessons range from practical advice to deeper values about embracing failure, practicing forgiveness, and recognizing that people can change. Schroeder admits the lessons she composed for her daughter are really things Hartford taught her, and that parenthood mirrors life itself: an ongoing cycle of making mistakes, learning, and trying again.