Kyle Richards

Kyle Egan Richards Umansky, born January 11, 1969, is an American actress, television personality, and socialite. She is best known for her long-running role as a main cast member on the Bravo reality television series The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which she joined at its inception in 2010. She is the longest-serving consecutive housewife in the history of the franchise. Before her prominent career in reality television, Richards worked extensively as a child actress in television shows and horror films.

Richards was born in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, to Kathleen Mary Richards and Kenneth Edwin Richards. Her parents divorced in 1972, after which she was raised primarily by her mother in a household that prioritized early financial independence. She is the youngest of three sisters, including actress Kim Richards and socialite Kathy Hilton, and has three paternal half-siblings. Raised as a child actor under her mother's management, Richards graduated from Central Union High School in El Centro, California, in 1987 and did not attend college.

Richards began her acting career at age five in 1974 with an appearance on Police Woman, followed by a recurring role as Alicia Sanderson Edwards on Little House on the Prairie. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, she appeared in films such as Eaten Alive (1976), The Car (1977), and Walt Disney’s The Watcher in the Woods (1980). In 1978, she portrayed Lindsey Wallace in John Carpenter's slasher film Halloween. She later starred in the fantasy sitcom Down to Earth from 1984 to 1987 and held a recurring role as nurse Dori Kerns on the medical drama ER from 1998 to 2006.

In 2010, Richards joined the cast of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alongside her sister Kim, with her family relationships serving as a central element of the series. While on the show, she continued to take on screen projects, reprising her role as Lindsey Wallace in Halloween Kills (2021) and Halloween Ends (2022). Her other projects include starring in the television film The Real Housewives of the North Pole (2021), the spin-off series The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip (2021), the holiday film The Holiday Exchange (2024), and the feature film Beautiful Wedding (2024). She also co-executive produced the 2018 television series American Woman and competed on The New Celebrity Apprentice in 2017.

Beyond acting and television, Richards has expanded into business and fashion. She previously operated boutiques under the brand Kyle by Alene Too, launched a clothing line on HSN in 2014, and collaborated with Shahida Clayton to launch the resortwear line Kyle x Shahida in 2019, later opening a boutique in Palm Desert, California. In 2011, she published the memoir Life Is Not a Reality Show: Keeping It Real with the Housewife Who Does It All. A supporter of Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Richards and her husband Mauricio Umansky are listed among its First Families donors. She also advocates for breast cancer awareness initiatives following her mother's death from the disease in 2002.

Over the course of her reality television career, Richards earned nominations for Reality Star of the Year at the People's Choice Awards in 2019 and 2022. She was also recognized on Variety's 40 Most Powerful Women on Reality TV list in 2023 and named one of Us Weekly's Reality Stars of the Year in 2024.