She made her movie debut at 13

LISAReality TV queen and campaigner Lisa Vanderpump (Image: Tommy Garcia/Bravo)

The road winds uphill into the clouds above Los Angeles, past the homes of Sylvester Stallone and Rod Stewart, through two security-coded gates, down a long tree-shaded driveway to a glass bridge across a shimmering moat, past gliding swans and diving turtles to Lisa Vanderpump's imposing front door. Eight immaculately groomed and pampered dogs roam the house, while a couple of miniature Shetland ponies nibble at the lawn beside the infinity pool overlooking rolling canyons reminiscent of the South of France. The Queen of Beverly Hills welcomes you to her £10million estate with a high-gloss, bubblegum-pink lipped smile, perfectly manicured hands and her Pomeranian, Puffy, nestled in the crook of her arm.

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"Sometimes I wonder: How did I get here?" admits the brunette from South London.

Yet here she is, talking exclusively to the Daily Express and also revealing the downside to her enormous success and her battle with depression.

If you don't know her name, then you haven't been watchingThe Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for the past nine years, or the past seven seasons of Vanderpump Rules, the reality TV series set in her sumptuous Los Angeles restaurant Sur.

Together, they have made the 58-year-old Briton one of America's premier reality TV icons, already a multimillionaire with her array of luxe restaurants and cocktail bars in Beverly Hills and Las Vegas, her signature line of wines, tableware and upscale pet accessories.

So it came as a shock when Lisa announced this week that she is quitting the series that made her a household name, and will no longer be a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills anywhere outside of her own kitchen.

"I was tearful most days filming Housewives last season," she admits, her elegant English accent still as crisp as a cucumber sandwich at a vicar's tea party. "The whole cast ganged up on me, and I was just weary."

familyLisa, right, husband Ken and their daughter Pandora at the World Dog Day celebration in Hollywood (Image: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

Her older brother, millionaire British DJ Mark, aged 59, committed suicide last year, and Lisa reveals: "I was emotionally depleted. I started filming two days after my brother's funeral, which was challenging at best. I wanted to take the year off, and didn't want to be in the emotionally combative situation that Housewives often entails. But I owed them my loyalty, and commitment."

Unhappily, Lisa found herself the season's villain in a row over a dog, branded "Doggygate" by the American press.

"I didn't have time for the petty bulls**t, really," she says. "People are screaming at you. They were arguing about who said what about a dog! I've had enough. It just became too much."

The show's producer, Andy Cohen, who created RHOBH around her, hopes she will return, saying: "The door will always be open to Lisa."

She shakes her head. "No," she says, but after a moment, shrugs: "Who knows?" Lisa sits perched on the edge of an oversized white sofa surrounded by antiques and oil paintings in her palatial Villa Rosa, each room fragrant with fresh flowers, her Rolls-Royce and white Porsche convertible standing on the driveway.

Her crisp white shirt is unbuttoned almost to the waist, revealing glimpses of a plunging cleavage cantilevered above designer black trousers and three-inch-heeled gold sling-backs.

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debutLisa, right, with Glenda Jackson (Image: NC)

So, how did she get here? "I had a happy childhood," she says. "My father was an ad agency art director, and we lived comfortably. I started ballet lessons at three, and attended Riverston School in Lee Green, South London. I was advanced for my age, always a year ahead at school.When I was too young to go to high school, rather than repeat a year, at nine I went to the Corona Academy drama school, and ended up staying for eight years."

She made her movie debut at 13 playing Glenda Jackson's daughter in

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