Ariana Madix Reveals WhichVanderpump RulesCostar Got Her the Most Memorable Holiday Gift (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Ariana Madix on Nov. 18, 2024 in New York.Photo:Janet Mayer/Shutterstock

Janet Mayer/Shutterstock

Ariana Madixappreciates a good holiday gift — especially one that helps keep her safe.

TheVanderpump Rulesalum, 39, tells PEOPLE that her longtime friend and costarScheana Shayonce gifted her a snowboard helmet, which she deemed one of her most memorable items.

“Helmets are important,” Madix says. “Everyone should be wearing helmets, whether they’re snowboarding, skiing, riding horses, riding motorcycles.”

Vanderpump Rules Season 11 Cast: Katie Maloney, Ariana Madix, Tom Sandoval, Lisa Vanderpump, James Kennedy, Lala Kent, Tom Schwartz, Scheana Shay.Gizelle Hernandez/Bravo

Gizelle Hernandez/Bravo

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But Madix explains, “I have a small head, so sometimes when you go get rentals for things, it’s hard. I have to try on kid-size helmets.”

TheLove Island USAhost said that Shay got her her own helmet, and it “was great because we were going on a snow trip soon after that, and I was able to not only look cute because it’s pink, but be safe.”

Madix and Shay have been friends sinceVanderpump Rulesdebuted in 2013, when Shay worked as a waitress and Madix as a bartender atLisa Vanderpump’s restaurant, SUR. Throughout the 11 seasons, the pair have remained close to one another as they went throughbreakups,shifts in the group’s dynamicand expandingtheir careers outside of SUR.

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Ariana Madix (L) and Scheana Shay (R) on February 22, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.Paul Archuleta/Getty

Paul Archuleta/Getty

As for Madix’s gift-giving skills, she tells PEOPLE while discussing hernew holiday editpartnership with DSW, “Every time there’s gift-giving happening, I’m super stressed.”

“I am not so good at it. I try and I get really lofty big ideas about gifts, and then I overthink and then if one part of it doesn’t work out I get really stressed,” she explains. “Then the day is coming up and I end up just freaking out and getting something that’s not quite what I wanted.”

She confesses that when she’s preparing to give gifts to her boyfriend, Daniel Wai, she likes to create a note folder on her phone to jot down ideas when Wai says he “likes something or that he would get this if he didn’t want to spend on it for himself.”

Ariana Madix on May 09, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California.Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images

Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images

“I have a little list there that I’ll be going off of and collecting things from,” she says. But despite her diligence, “he’s the gift-giver.”

“He already knows what he wants to get. He’s already gotten me, I think, most of it,” she says, calling him “the best gift-giver I’ve ever met in my life.”

source: people.com