Brittany Cartwright opened up about how Jax Taylor screwed her over after their split while appearing on Bravo’s podcast on Monday.
Months after The Valley cast member filed for divorce following five years of marriage and one child, three-year-old son Cruz, Brittany, 35, shared that Jax, 45, had put her in a bad spot financially as she admitted to hooking up with his friend, detailed his rage texts from rehab and frequent “blowups,” and revealed if she blames the show for their breakup.
“It just makes me so mad,” Brittany said on the November 11 episode of Bravo’s Hot Mic podcast after being asked about Jax’s new apartment, which is located in the same building as Tom Schwartz‘s place. “I have a rental that I had to pay for upfront, so whenever I found out that he signed a lease behind my back, didn’t talk to me about it and he was living in the home, wouldn’t let me have the house, I’m spending thousands and thousands of dollars to stay in these rentals, and then he ups and signs a lease without me knowing, and low and behold it’s right next to Tom Schwartz.”
According to Brittany, Jax knew that she had paid for an apartment through October 31. So rather than move into that and allow her to pay for their marital home, he stuck her with bills for both homes.
“He just didn’t even think about me at all whenever he was doing these things … He made me waste all this money when I was still paying all the bills, taking care of both households, taking care of groceries for both houses, doing all the things, cleaning whenever I was going back and forth, I was taking care of everything for both houses. [He] just didn’t care,” she stated.
After Jax moved into his apartment building, Tom immediately grew concerned that he would once again be dragged down by his closeness to a scandalous friend.
“Tom is so worried that he’s gonna get dragged into another ‘Scandoval’ situation because he’s like ‘I did not think that he was actually gonna move next door to me,’ and of course, Jax isn’t gonna pass an opportunity to live his little bachelor pad ways,” Brittany noted. “I knew it.”
Although Jax has been living in his new apartment since August, Brittany said she has yet to visit.
“No, [and] I don’t plan to go over there anytime soon. I don’t even want to know where it is,” she stated. “It’s a very tough spot for me cuz I feel like he just completely f-ed me and Cruz over with that situation because he didn’t want to miss out on living next to Tom,” she explained.
And that wasn’t all that Jax did post-split. In fact, according to Brittany, he did “even worse things.”
“That’s why I’m so mad about that condo. He just screwed me over so bad. I was the only one dishing out money. I was the only one getting Uhauls and moving four times,” she revealed. “He just got to stay in our beautiful home with all of our stuff, and it just seemed so unfair to me. He was the one screaming, doing all these fights, really horrible to me, but yet I’m the one that has to do everything. It was very unfair to me.”
Several weeks after Jax moved out of his and Brittany’s marital home and into his new place, it was revealed that Brittany had hooked up with his friend, Julian Sensley.
“We did not have a no dating in the friend group policy. We never spoke about that, because why would we? First of all, I didn’t think that I was going to hook up with his friend. It wasn’t planned. I wasn’t trying to go after one of his friends. That’s not how it happened,” Brittany said of their rendevous. “Whenever I did start hanging out with him, it was because it was somebody that I knew. I always thought he was hot. And also, I was just so mad at Jax. So like, I didn’t care if I hurt his feelings about that… He never cared about how he hurt my feelings for years. He put me down. He did so much to me. So, it’s like, I’m sorry that you’re so upset about who it is, but at the same time, you didn’t give me attention, affection, or anything for years.”
“I was like, ‘This guy is really hot. I’m taking care of myself, and Jax has no leg to stand on,” Brittany continued, signaling to Jax’s past hookup with Faith Stowers, who he cheated on her with before they wed. “He’s done it to other friends… I could tell that this guy was flirting. I was always flirting with him. He is very much my type and just kind of flirting through DMs, and one time I was just like, ‘Come over.'”
Although Jax and Brittany didn’t have a “no friends” rule in place, they did agree not to have anyone over to their marital home or around Cruz — but Jax didn’t adhere.
“What we had said is nobody around Cruz and nobody at our home that we own together that I still pay the bills for that, that all my photos and my furniture and everything I own is still at that house and my son stays there. Like, just please don’t have girls at the house. Those were the rules,” she shared. “I don’t know if he had anybody around Cruz, but he definitely had people at my house because I caught him both two times.”
Regarding the 30 days Jax spent in a mental health facility, Brittany said she does not believe it changed him one bit.
“I don’t feel like he changed at all in those 30 days. A lot of rage texting was still going on the entire time he was in rehab. So for me, I was just noticing this is just going to be constant. If you’re in therapy seven hours a day and you’re still finding time to call me names and cuss me out and send me rage texts, you’re obviously never gonna change,” she stated. “Like, this is bad. I can’t stay in this. [It was] very eye-opening.”
Over the many years they spent together, Brittany said blowups were a regular thing for Jax. However, it was one particular outburst that occurred two days before filming began on the second season of The Valley that stood out amongst the rest.
“I had tried everything I could possibly try, and he had a really, really, really big blowup, and it will be talked about on the show, and we have all the details about that, but it was just too much, and I just realized he’s never gonna change. He’s actually spiraling and getting worse throughout our separation,” she recalled. “It kinda did the opposite. He was going to all these appearances and all these nights out at the bars, and just doing all these things and the girls and the drinking and the partying, it was just constant. He just was not changing at all, and I just definitely was at a different place. I just hit my limit.”
Suspecting Jax was having a “midlife crisis,” Brittany said that “everything got way worse and a horrible blowup happened two days before we started filming.”
“I was done at that point. I was completely done because it was so bad,” she explained. “I’ll say, a week and a half before that, we were talking about me moving back into the house, we were trying to get back together, and things just spiraled out of control. I had just shut off at that point. It was too much. It’s not like that was an isolated incident. He’s had these blowups sporadically over years before I had Cruz, after I had Cruz … But I think that throughout our separation, they started getting worse. They were escalating and the things he was saying, the things he was doing, just continually got worse and it just got so bad that I couldn’t deal with it anymore.”
Even ahead of the interview, Brittany said she was set off by her estranged husband.
“I’m running late cuz Jax came over to help me take Cruz to school today and didn’t help me out at all, actually put me behind because I still had to do everything. He does not know how to fix his hair, figure out what to put in his lunchbox … You have to have a lunchbox, a snack box, an extra pair of clothes, all the things. I try to have most of it done, but still. With him, I got two kids,” she complained, adding, “I just want to go in on Jax and how much of a piece of sh*t he is.”
While reality television is often blamed for splits, Brittany denied The Valley caused her and Jax’s breakup.
“It’s hard to pinpoint because we had been arguing and fighting for a while. It’s not like it only happened cuz we started filming,” she shared.
“I think that he didn’t ever want me talking about us fighting or anything like that. He would get angry with me if I had conversations with my close friends about our relationship. I was never allowed to vent or anything like that. And of course, when we’re filming a show, we do,” she continued. “We talk about those things. And I think that that also made it where me and Jax were fighting even more because he was so worried about that, what I was saying to other people.”
Also during the interview, Brittany confirmed that she actually lived in four different homes after splitting from Jax earlier this year.
“I think I lived in four different rental houses within seven months. It’s been a lot,” she confessed. “I spent a lot of money. He wouldn’t move out, though. I asked, ‘Can you please move out? Me and Cruz can stay here.’ And he wouldn’t. He just wasn’t about that. He’s like, ‘This is my house.’”
The Valley season two is expected to begin airing on Bravo sometime in early 2025.
