It has been nearly three years since Jax Taylor had a falling out with Stassi Schroeder and Beau Clark — and Taylor is still “scared” about taking the first step to reconnect.
“There’s one couple that I really wish would have been on [The Valley] and I just tried and tried and tried and I just can’t get them on. It’s Stassi and Beau,” Taylor, 45, said on the Thursday, March 13, episode of his “In The Mind of a Man” podcast. “I wish I could weather that freaking storm.”
Taylor told executive producer Alex Baskin that his issues with the couple — specifically Clark — are the one thing “hanging over” his head, adding, “I tried to reach out and I understand they’re upset with me over this wedding situation that I’ve caused.”
For those Bravo fans who don’t remember, Taylor and Brittany Cartwright missed Schroeder, 36, and Clark’s nuptials in Italy in 2022. Schroeder, who previously dated Taylor during season 1 of Vanderpump Rules, was first to publicly address speculation about their absences.
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“To our faces, they are telling us that they are coming, but behind our back, the dude is texting Beau’s best friend that they’re not,” Schroeder said on the couple’s “The Good the Bad The Baby” podcast in May 2022. “Good friends don’t do that. They don’t talk s—t about your wedding behind your back or pretend that they’re coming and give a list of reasons why they’re not coming to other people. Friends don’t do that to each other.”
She continued: “Two weeks before the wedding, right before I left for the book tour, I was like, ‘We need to address this with them because I’m not playing this game.’ I ordered all the stuff we needed to have in terms of seat assignments and the place cards. That’s done. So I need to know if I need to quickly ask to get things rearranged. Because it’s not just, like, taking out two people.”
Cartwright and Taylor, meanwhile, claimed there were multiple last-minute reasons they couldn’t attend, including their now-3-year-old son, Cruz, not having a passport and a death in the family. During Thursday’s episode, Taylor took accountability for telling Clark’s friend he couldn’t be going before informing the groom himself.
“Before I got to tell Beau, his friend Rob told him. And unfortunately, it didn’t come out of my mouth so I don’t know how it was worded. Beau just got really upset and Stassi got really upset,” Taylor added. “We have apologized. We sent them money. It just was really unfortunate how it all turned out. Was it my fault? Yeah, it was.”
Taylor noted that he “reached out multiple times,” saying, “I’ve run into Stassi a few times and she’s always like, ‘Hey, I’m so happy for you with the bar.’ She’s always very kind to me. I know she talks to Brittany.”
It is Clark, 44, however, that Taylor isn’t sure how to approach. “We have a couple of mutual friends. And every time I see them I’m like, ‘Hey, can you tell Beau to call me and tell him I miss him. Tell Beau I want him to come to my bar because he would love my bar.’ And he is my friend.”
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Taylor hinted that he wasn’t ready to reach out to Clark, adding, “I should. I’m just nervous and I’m scared a little bit because I just don’t think he wants to see me. It just sucks. And we’re getting older so I’m not scared to say, ‘Hey, I miss the guy.’ So it just sucks.”
While Clark hasn’t discussed his ongoing tension with Taylor, Schroeder explained her complicated feelings.
“I do miss them at times. They hurt me — they really did. It feels like I can’t trust them anymore,” Schroeder said while cohosting “The Toast” podcast in 2023. “I am over it but it doesn’t mean I have to go be besties with these people again.”
Schroeder added at the time that she wasn’t thrilled with Taylor and Cartwright‘s comments about missing her special day.
“I think what hurts the most is how Jax says, ‘We already went to their first wedding.’ We didn’t get to have one — we literally just signed papers in Katie’s backyard [in October 2020] during my baby shower with less than 10 people. It wasn’t a wedding,” Schroeder noted.
More recently, Schroeder denied having any interest in The Valley.
“First of all, it wouldn’t be a reflection of what my reality is,” she said on SiriusXM’s Jeff Lewis Live in January 2024. “It’s not my group of friends,” she continued. “I’m friendly with some of them. I’m acquaintances with some of them and some of the new ones, too, I think are lovely, but it’s not my crew.”
She added: “I don’t want to have to go and do things that I normally wouldn’t do. I don’t want to disrupt the life that I have right now, because I really like my life right now. When they filmed the sizzle, I was still friends with everyone and I still was like, ‘No.’”
