Vanderpump Rules' Kristen Doute Confirms She and Ex Brian Carter Are Just 'Friends'

Kristen Doute is laying it all out there when it comes to her relationship with ex Brian Carter.

On Sunday, the Vanderpump Rules star explained in a lengthy Instagram post where she and Carter stand four months after confirming on the season 7 reunion that they had broken up.

“Relationships are messy, and it’s not fair to anyone to hide from the truth for the sake of criticism,” Doute, 36, captioned an Instagram photo of herself lying outside beside her dog.

“I haven’t come to terms with everyone wanting a black and white answer of where Carter and I stand,” she added. “I want to scream, what about the gray parts of this, the undefinable aspects of loving and caring for someone, while knowing that they aren’t your person anymore? After the therapy, the meditation, all the steps you take to pursue actual self love, how do you define the realization that you have to move on in order to truly grow?”

Doute, who had been dating Carter for three years, said that she’s “been called a hypocrite” and “a villain” for not being open to the world about their relationship.

“But we both deserve this weight to be lifted, so this is our version of a conscious uncoupling,” Doute wrote. “Carter and I both know and have come to terms that our new label is friends – full of the utmost love and respect. He’s one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever known. As we unravel what has been for so long such an intertwined life, it hasn’t been easy.”

Concluding her post, Doute wrote, “But it’s a step in the right direction. It may not be the black and white answer everyone is looking for, but it’s our answer and that will just have to do.”

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In May, the reality star confirmed to Andy Cohen on the VPR reunion that she was “single.” She and Carter, a photographer, met through the dating app Bumble in 2015, shortly after she parted ways with James Kennedy.

In 2016, when asked whether she thinks Carter was the one, Doute told E! News, “Totally, no question. It’s hard to explain. I was talking to my friend Jade [Roper] who just got married, and she told me, ‘To each their own. When you know, you know.'”

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However, the couple’s issues were illuminated during season 7 of the Bravo series, when the two were constantly fighting.

“My issues are that you bark at me and you raise your voice and you cuss,” she told him during an episode that aired in February. “And I’ve said this in couple’s therapy, I’ve said this to you, it’s just the shortness.”

“When you come home, the first thing that you do is basically bitch at me for about 20, 30 minutes about something that happened about your day,” Carter replied.