NEED TO KNOW
Brittany Cartwright is finally getting back her sparkle.
The Valley star, 36, brought the new man she’s dating to Narwal’s End of Summer Soirée in Los Angeles on Thursday, Aug. 21 — and costar Kristen Doute told PEOPLE at the event that he’s “very much approved of.”
“She has someone in her life that’s really amazing that I am head over heels for,” says Doute, 42. “She’s dated people during her single years since her ex-husband [Jax Taylor], and I have not approved of them. They’ve been fine, but not wonderful. This person is very wonderful and very cool. Very family-feeling.”
Cartwright — who shares son Cruz, 4, with Taylor — adds that the person she is seeing is also a parent.
“He’s a dad, so it makes it really easy,” notes Doute. “A lot easier and understandable.”
Asked whether she and her new man are serious, Cartwright says, “We’ll see.”
Cartwright separated from Taylor in February 2023 and officially filed for divorce that August.
In April, Cartwright told PEOPLE that leading up to their separation, she’d had “enough” of Taylor’s “come downs” related to his substance abuse issues. (In March, Taylor, 46, said he’d struggled with cocaine addiction over the past 20 years.)
“It got so bad, and he was just so aggressive and horrible to me, yelling at me in front of our son,” she said. “I had to take Cruz out of the house.”
After they split, “he just spiraled out of control,” she claimed. “There was no possible way that we were going to meet back in the middle again.”
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Cartwright also told PEOPLE in April that she was looking for new love.
She said she had been on a “couple dates here and there” since her split from Taylor but hadn’t found anything serious yet.
“I deserve to have butterflies again,” she said. “I just want somebody to be nice to me, and that’s sad. I just really want somebody to take me on dates. It doesn’t even have to be anything fancy. Something sweet, something small, will make my day.”
“I’m also just wanting to have some fun, until I do find that right person again,” she said. “I got to make sure that it’s somebody that loves kids. That’s something that’s very important to me.”
Now, Cartwright says she’s going to prioritize herself.
Referencing her split from Taylor, Cartwright tells PEOPLE at the Aug. 21 event, “I’ve been through so much.”
“I feel like I’m in such a better place than I was last year,” she says. “I want to focus on me. I just want to have fun with my friends, have fun with my baby [Cruz] and just do fun positive things because I’m so past the drama that I had for so long in my life, and I feel like I’ve grown so much and I’ve changed so much.”
“My outlook on everything with that toxic situation I was in has changed dramatically,” she continues. “So I’m excited to just have fun and explore this new me. Let go of the dead weight, let go of the drama and just enjoy my life and my family and my friends.”
