Lisa Rinna says her casting on Melrose Place never felt entirely “clean”
Rinna spoke about her casting on the latest episode of the Melrose Place rewatch podcast, Still the Place
On the podcast, Rinna noted that she was hired for the role of Taylor McBride after another actress — Hunter Tylo — was hired and then fired after telling producers she was pregnant
Lisa Rinna says her Melrose Place casting never felt entirely “clean” due to the circumstances surrounding it.
On the May 19, 2025, episode of the Melrose Place rewatch podcast Still the Place, Rinna, 61, spoke about how she was hired to join the cast after another actress, Hunter Tylo, was fired.
Noting that she never auditioned for the role, Rinna said, “they had cast another actress to play Taylor McBride.”
That actress was Tylo, who was fired from the show before filming began after she told producers she was pregnant. Tylo went on to file — and win — a nearly $5 million lawsuit against the show’s creator, Aaron Spelling, alleging discrimination.
Paramount Television/ Courtesy Everett Collection
Thomas Calabro and Lisa Rinna on ‘Melrose Place’ in 1996
“And so if you remember, they felt that this character of Taylor McBride would not be — it wouldn’t behoove them to cast a pregnant woman. Cut to, of course, the lawsuit that she filed,” the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alumna said.
Rinna eventually had to testify in the lawsuit, detailing how she and another of the show’s cast members, Heather Locklear, “were both pregnant on that witness stand.”
She continued: “We had to go and testify on the side of Spelling — you know, we were subpoenaed. And I’ll just never forget — I don’t even know if they knew I was pregnant. Heather was much more.”
Rinna added that she never felt completely satisfied with her casting because of all that came before it, saying, “You know, whenever you get a role that somebody else lost, it never really feels 100 [percent] good. Even though this was a big break for me to get this role, I got it under circumstances that didn’t feel clean. And I didn’t audition for it.”
Maureen Donaldson/Getty
Hunter Tylo in 1990
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Rather than audition for the role, she said her manager at the time “worked magic, and the next thing I know, I’m playing this role.”
Rinna appeared on the series for 66 episodes between 1996 and 1998, just after first leaving Days of Our Lives, to which she has since frequently returned.
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