Michelle Saniei Lally just may be starting a cheating rumor of her own.
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While much of the first season of The Valley has focused on rumors that Michelle may have been sending sexy pictures of herself to another man — a claim which she has denied — the luxury real estate agent seemingly implied someone else on the cast may be hiding a juicy secret.
Michelle was addressing the fallout from the rumors, started by Kristen Doute, when she suggested that Kristen stay focused on her own relationship with Colorado ranch owner Luke Broderick.
“Kristen is accusing me of being a cheater, when she has cheated on her boyfriends,” Michelle said in her confessional.
“Are you saying that she’s cheated on Luke?” a producer asked her.
Michelle didn’t respond, but gave a sly smile.
“Is that something you want to talk about?” the producer pushed.
“Um, I don’t know,” Michelle said.
Michelle never directly made any allegations about Kristen’s relationship with Luke or provided any further details, but it certainly appeared she knew more than she was sharing.
How long have Kristen and Luke been dating?
Kristen and Luke began dating in June 2022 after meeting at a mutual friend’s wedding.
Luke, a Colorado resident, owns a 70-acre ranch in The Centennial State, but has been spending more time in California with Kristen as the couple tries to have a baby together.
Their fertility journey has been a frequent focus of The Valley as they visited a fertility doctor, sat down with a couple’s counselor, and got in plenty of “practice” throughout the first season.
“Luke and I were working — and are still working — really hard on our fertility and having a child and figuring out what our next steps in our next five years look like,” Kristen recently shared with her former Vanderpump Rules co-star Scheana Shay on the Vanderpump Rules After Show.
The couple’s relationship appears to be solid and they even host the podcast Balancing Act with Kristen Doute and Luke Broderick together, further cementing their ties to one another.
What has Kristen Doute said about Michelle Saniei Lally?
But the couple’s time on The Valley has been filled with controversy after Kristen hinted early in the season that she was “protecting” Michelle by not revealing a damaging secret about her marriage.
Rumors about what Kristen meant by the comment quickly began to swirl. Jax Taylor confessed to Jasmine Goode that he heard Michelle had been texting sexy photos of herself to an unnamed celebrity, despite being married to Jesse Lally.
Kristen herself dropped a bombshell out of the earshot of the rest of the cast after a disastrous group dinner party, alleging to producers that Michelle “had a f-cking boyfriend for a year.”
“About a year ago, Michelle and Jesse were very unhappy,” she alleged. “Michelle had a guy. She was seeing him, they were hanging out. I was not against any of this because I think Jesse is a piece of sh-t.”
The “boyfriend” claim has never been mentioned again, but Jax finally made the decision to bring the texting rumors to Michelle to get her take during a group trip to Big Bear Lake to celebrate the babymoon of castmates Janet and Jason Caperna.
Michelle adamantly denied sending sexy photos to anyone and claimed the correspondence with the mystery celebrity was just for work.
“I’m the kind of person where let’s say I meet a celebrity, I get really excited because I see them as, like, a possibility that they could be a client or stuff like that. So, I’m always calling, texting, emailing, meeting for coffee,” she told Jax, insisting any story she was sending sexy pics was “wrong.”
Michelle and Jax later spoke to Jesse about the rumors and again she insisted she had not sent any sexy photos to anyone.
Jesse initially seemed to brush off the rumors, telling Jax and Michelle they should all just “move on,” but he seemed to have some second thoughts the next day, as shown in Episode 11.
“You know I don’t like to hear stuff like that ‘cause then it makes me question you. And it’s like OK, well, why would somebody just randomly make that up?” Jesse told Michelle.
Michelle, for her part, continued to insist she had been “pretty clear” and told Jesse “everything.”
“I know that we deal with clients differently than, you know, than Kristen would ever have to deal with anybody, but the truth is like, first, you won’t ever let me touch your phone or go near it or if I walk by, you would look at it, you would close it right away,” Jesse continued. “Then there’s a rumor that you’re sending sexy or flirty photos to guys and I know it’s coming from Kristen, Kristen’s mouth, but the truth is like you start to compound all those things you know.”
He continued that he just didn’t want to look “foolish” by continuing to work on the marriage if something else was secretly going on.
“I did not send any pictures to anybody, let’s make that clear,” Michelle replied. “I’m not doing anything bad.”
Although Michelle has continued to deny the rumors, it’s clear she didn’t appreciate Kristen spreading them around, leading her to question Kristen’s activities while talking with producers.
To find out whether Kristen will respond to Michelle’s comments, watch The Valley Tuesday nights on Bravo or available streaming on Peacock the next day.
