Who is Taylor Armstrong?
Taylor Armstrong is an American reality star and media personality, who is probably best known for starring in the TV reality show “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”. Additionally, she is widely recognized for being one of the main protagonists of the viral meme ‘woman yelling at a cat’, as well as for appearing in several popular television shows such as “Couples Therapy” and “Home & Family”.
Early Life and Childhood
Shana Lynette Hughes was born under the zodiac sign of Gemini on the 10th June 1971, in Independence, Kansas, and is of American nationality and white ethnicity.
Her family later relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she enrolled at Union High School, from which she matriculated in 1989. During her high school years, Shana was a cheerleader.
Upon completing her secondary education, she adopted a name of Taylor Ford and moved to Beverly Hills, California, with the intention of launching her own e-commerce enterprise.
Personal Life
While waiting to be served at a local restaurant in Beverly Hills, in late 2004 Taylor met American venture-capital executive Russell Armstrong, with whom she soon began dating. After building their relationship for less than a year, the couple bring it to the next level and tie the knot.
Their wedding ceremony took place on the 27th October 2005, and the following yearnTaylor and Russell welcomed their only child, a daughter named Kennedy Caroline Russell.
However, things weren’t going great, and after six years of holy matrimony, in July 2011 Taylor filed for divorce, citing severe physical and emotional abuse as the reasons behind their separation. Allegedly, she has also undergone facial reconstructive surgery after Russell caused her orbital floor fracture during one of his violent escapades. Additionally, Taylor demanded joint physical custody over their, at that time five year old, daughter.
In August 2011, a month after she filed for divorce, Russell Armstrong committed a suicide by hanging. She found his dead body on the 11th August in a rented home on Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles.
In her autobiographical book entitled “Hiding from Reality: My Story of Love, Loss, and Finding the Courage Within” published in February 2012, Taylor openly provides in detail descriptions of what she suffered during her marriage with Russell. Taylor Armstrong is an ambassador and contributor to the 1736 Family Crisis Center, the LA-based charitable organization with a mission to help the victims of domestic abuse.
In 2012, Taylor began dating American attorney John Bluher – they became engaged in late 2013 and after a seven-month-long engagement, the couple exchanged their vows on the 4th April 2014 in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles. The 48-year-old reality star sports a slim, toned figure and is standing 5ft 8ins (1.71m) tall while weighing around 125lbs (57kgs).
‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”
In 2010, alongside Kim Richards, Kyle Richards, Camille Grammer, Lisa Vanderpump and Adrienne Maloof, Taylor joined the cast of the first season of Bravo TV’s reality show “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills“.
The sixth installment from the “The Real Housewives” reality franchise, it premiered in October 2010, and followed the everyday lives of Beverly Hills-based housewives. In 2011 the show was honored with the Critics Choice Award for the Best Reality Series. In September the show’s second season premiered, but was later re-edited due to Taylor’s segregate husband’s suicide. After being one of the main stars of the series for three years, during its fourth season in late 2013, Taylor was ‘demoted’ to a role of guest. In the course of the next three years she occasionally appeared, before leaving the series in 2016, after its seventh season.
Meme
In addition to all the popularity this whole engagement earned her, Taylor Armstrong became widely recognized for the viral meme commonly referred to as ‘woman yelling at a cat‘. Namely, during the ‘Malibu Beach Party From Hell’ episode in the show’s second season that aired on the 5th December 2011, Taylor found herself in a lively argument and ended up crying with co-star Kyle Richards trying to calm her down. In June 2018, a photo of a confused cat sitting around a dinner table went viral on Tumblr.
After @MISSINGEGIRL combined these two photos and published it on Twitter, the meme ‘woman yelling at a cat’ was born, and shortly after became a viral hit.
Other Career Highlights
Apart from regularly appearing in “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”, Taylor Armstrong has added several other notable on-screen appearances to her portfolio. In 2012 she appeared briefly in the TV reality series “Project Runway Australia”, while in 2014 she starred in a streak of episodes of the “Couples Therapy” reality television show.
Since then she has made numerous appearances in popular TV talk shows, such “Home & Family”, “The Doctors”, “Oprah: Where Are They Now?” as well as “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen” and “Entertainment Tonight”.
Net Worth
The total size of Taylor Armstrong’s net worth, as authoritative sources estimate, revolves around quite an impressive sum of $2.5 million as of mid-2020, primarily acquired through her six-year-long engagement in the TV reality series “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”, adding a fee of $175,000 per episode.