A shoulder to lean on. Kristen Doute’s boyfriend, Alex Menache, is proving he has her back following her Vanderpump Rules firing.
“This woman has been put thru the ringer [sic] these last few weeks and has taken it like a champ,” Menache wrote via Instagram on Tuesday, June 30, as he shared a photo of her poking out her tongue while he kissed her on her cheek. “Anyone that knows you knows your heart is pure and kind.”
Menache praised Doute, 37, for keeping her head up after a tough month that saw her and costar Stassi Schroeder fired on June 9, after racist remarks they’d made about former costar Faith Stowers resurfaced.
“She has dealt with it with grace and strength, and is putting in the work behind the scenes,” he continued. “I honor you @kristendoute and will always be your #1 big idiot fan!”
Doute has been keeping a low profile since her axing but the couple were spotted at former Vanderpump Rules costars’ Tom Schwartz and Katie Maloney’s L.A. home on June 24, to celebrate Schroeder’s 32nd birthday.
The Michigan native arrived at the bash with flowers in one hand and a dish in the other — and her man by her side. The outing marked the first time Doute and Schroeder — who have been feuding recently — were seen together since being let go by Bravo.
“Stassi and Kristen have been talking more and more,” a source told Us Weekly at the time. “While they wouldn’t consider themselves ‘best friends’ at the moment, their personal drama with each other has taken a backseat and they’ve been able to reconnect a little and be there for one another.”
While the Next Level Basic author has leaned on her fiancé, Beau Clark, amid the controversy and throughout her pregnancy — the two are expecting their first child together — Doute has turned to Menache.
Us broke the news in April that Doute was dating Menache after splitting from Brian Carter in January.
The He’s Making You Crazy author told Us the following month that she had a different kind of romance with her new beau and that he was made “very, very aware of every single thing in this book.”
Doute called the relationship “sacred” in May, noting that she put everything out on the table before they became an item.
“I really took my time with Alex and I really had to just lay it all out there and say, ‘This is who I am. This is what I’ve been through. You have a choice to make and either way it’s cool,’” she told Us.
The pair were already seeing each other in January, when Us confirmed Doute’s split from Carter.
“I did just start talking to someone. I don’t have a boyfriend,” the T-shirt designer told Us at the time. “That’s the scary part of dating — at one point are you just having fun and sleeping together and then you’re going out on dates and then you’re sleeping together on the reg. And then you’re only kind of dating each other, but you don’t want to. So at one point do you just go, ‘Oh s—t.’”
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