Rinna and Hamlin have been married since March 1997

NEED TO KNOW

• Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin have been married for nearly 29 years
• In a new interview with Jesse Tyler Ferguson, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum revealed that their relationship isn’t always “cute” and that it takes “work”
• “You can start to grow apart, and then you gotta make sure that you come back together. It’s work. A good marriage is a lot of work,” Rinna said

Lisa Rinna is getting candid about the realities of her relationship with Harry Hamlin.

While promoting her new memoir, You Better Believe I'm Gonna Talk About It, on the latest Dinner's on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson podcast episode released on Tuesday, Feb. 24, Rinna, 62, opened up to host Jesse Tyler Ferguson, 50, about her decades-long romance with Hamlin, 74. She admitted that "it's not cute all the time," and that marriage takes "a lot of work."

Rinna has shared much of her life on screen, having starred on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for eight seasons, and said it was important to show all aspects of her life, both the good and the bad. She didn't want to pretend that her marriage is perfect because that's unrealistic.

"We're human, and I think it's super important to show your humanity," she said. "Where I am in my life right now, I think it's really important for people to hear that it's not easy to be married for all these years. It's not easy to raise a family anywhere, let alone Hollywood, Calif."

Rinna and Hamlin met in 1992 and began dating the following year. The couple got engaged in 1997 and wed in March that same year. Over the course of their marriage, they welcomed daughters Delilah, 27, and Amelia, 24. Hamlin is also father to son Dimitri, 45, whom he shares with ex Ursula Andress, 89.

"There's so many things that you don't know what's behind the curtain," Rinna continued. "When you see people, you don't know what they're dealing with in their lives. And I think it's important to share that. I thought it was important to share all of that."

Rinna admitted that marriage can be harder than expected "because life gets difficult." What's crucial is that couples never stop working on their relationship, she said.

"You can start to grow apart, and then you gotta make sure that you come back together. It's work," she explained. "A good marriage is a lot of work."

The former Bravo star added that "mutual respect" and therapy, as needed, are the keys to a long-term marriage.

"As long as you have a mutual respect for one another, I think is really the key," she said. "The minute you start to devalue one another, that's when you gotta go to therapy and stop that. Because it's easy. Resentment builds up, and you could be, like, mad from 20 years ago and not even know it. You gotta catch that s–t."

She continued, "If you need to go to therapy, you go to therapy. If you have issues you can't get through, you just gotta do it. It's not cute all the time."

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Back in May 2024, Rinna told PEOPLE that she credits her marriage longevity to "luck."

"I just think we got very lucky that we found each other," The Traitors star said.

She added at the time, "I mean, we really love each other and respect each other, so that's helpful, and I really like him as a human. I think he's a really good man and I feel really lucky. But I think it's very hard to find someone that you want to spend that much time with."

You Better Believe I'm Gonna Talk About It is out now.

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