At 14, Ariana Madix Had Her First Kiss

The day before Ariana Madix and I are scheduled to chat, the dream she’s had since she was a 14-year-old girl came true: She was cast as Roxie Hart in Chicago, marking her Broadway debut. “[A decade ago] I lived in New York, with no connections, no nothing, just trying to get a theater career off the ground,” Madix, 38, tells me, marveling at her full-circle moment.

In the interim, Madix moved to Los Angeles in the hopes that if she scored some TV work, Broadway would take notice, and wound up as the calmest presence on Bravo’s most chaotic show — Vanderpump Rules, which follows the drama-heavy, often-incestuous lives of one restaurant’s waitstaff. Ten years into her reality TV tenure, the Great White Way finally called her up. “I think the universe just said, ‘Girl, you’re on the wrong path,’ and it shoved me over,’” Madix said of her post-Scandoval success on a recent episode of Watch What Happens Live.

By all accounts, 2023 has been Madix’s year. Yes, she was cheated on. But she also starred in a Lifetime movie (Buying Back My Daughter), competed on Dancing With the Stars (placing third), and released a book, Single AF Cocktails (an instant New York Times bestseller). And yet, landing the role of Roxie is more than a cherry on top of a wild 12 months; it’s the culmination of 20 years of hard work, dating all the way back to Madix’s Catholic schoolgirl days in Melbourne, Florida.

“In high school, we did Anything Goes, Honk! the musical, Once on This Island,” she says. Back then, she balanced theater rehearsals with life as a “horse girl” (a passion she still maintains to this day, frequently riding horses with co-stars Lisa Vanderpump and Lala Kent on Vanderpump). “I was spending all my time at the barn after school, with my horse Raven, and [riding competitively] in pony club shows,” she says. In retrospect, it was great training: If her 14-year-old self could make it from the stage to the barn in time, juggling Bravo, Broadway, and whatever else “the universe” has in store for Madix should be smooth sailing.

Below, Madix reflects on life with braces, having mosquito bites for boobs, and her first boy-girl party.

Take me back to 1999, when you were 14. How were you feeling about life?

I had braces and an obsession with the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and Hanson. I was also a full-on horse girl and theater kid.

Tell me more about the braces.

I got my braces right before ninth grade. and I had them for three and a half years. That’s almost all of high school.

Rough. How did you balance all of your extracurriculars?

I started doing theater in Catholic [middle] school. I always just really wanted to be on stage. Then in high school, I was doing show choir and the high school plays as well. I had dreams, even then, of skipping college altogether, moving to New York, and trying to be in theater. But my mom was like, “No, you need to actually go to school.”

What was your social life like?

I had a lot of sleepovers. But I think my 13th birthday was the first time I was allowed to have a boy-girl party. It was a pool party, which was very exciting.

Anyone you had a crush on there? Or any celebrity crushes?

Definitely Taylor Hanson, Nick Carter, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Any boy that had a center-part bowl cut, pretty much. Like the Devon Sawas of the world.

Had you had your first kiss?

I had my first kiss, my first real kiss, as a freshman in high school. I think it was after school — on my way to get picked up by my mom or something — in the hallway.

On Vanderpump, you’ve always been very honest about your relationship to your mental health and disordered eating. Sometimes those struggles begin to percolate in the early teen years. How were you feeling in your body?

I was super, super, super tiny when I was that age. I remember getting made fun of for being flat-chested and for being "built like a 12-year-old boy." Or boys would call [my boobs] “mosquito bites.”

I remember, and it's weird to say now, but when I finally hit three digits in my weight I was over the moon. I was like, “Finally, people will stop calling me anorexic!” That's the thing, it's like no matter what you [look like], it's not right according to someone out there.

How aware were you of reality TV at the time?

I wasn't allowed to watch MTV or anything with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. That was the time of MTV Spring Break, and my mom felt like those types of things were demeaning towards women. Now, as an adult, I encourage any woman to do whatever she wants with her body. But as a kid seeing that, I feel like you maybe wouldn't understand what's going on and you'd just be like, “Oh, OK, this is what I'm supposed to do.”

What would your 14-year-old self think of your life now — reality TV career or otherwise?

Oh my gosh. My 14-year-old self would be so excited. I think I would just be like, "Are you kidding me?"

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.