The Bravo Universe Is In Shambles After Vanderpump Rules Tom Sandoval Gets Caught Cheating On Ariana Madix With Cast Member Raquel Leviss
Let me start off by saying that I am not a consistent Vanderpump Rules watcher, but I've seen enough to know all of the players involved, and just how insane this whole story is. There are a lot of moving parts, so I'm going to summarize them in a VERY baseline way. There are so many layers from seasons past that I can't get into, I'm only breaking down what's happening this week. Here we go:
Tom and Ariana
Tom Sandoval, one half of the TomTom duo and restauranteur(and lead singer of a weird band?) has been dating Ariana for about 9 years. They are one of the longest reigning "Bravo couples," and while Tom is now a "rock star," I don't think any of us saw this kind of drama coming. Before one of Tom's shows, he gave this interview about his relationship with Ariana, allegedly MINTUES before Ariana discovered....
….that he's been having a full blown affair with another cast member, Raquel.
Raquel Leviss
So, Raquel is a shady bitch and always has been. She was previously engaged to James Kennedy, another Pump Rules guy, but they broke it off and had a generally bad ending. She rarely accepts responsibility for her actions, but somehow, some of these girls on the show still have her back. This past Thursday, the day before this cheating scandal came out, Ria and Fran interviewed Raquel and Sheana (another cast member) about some OTHER drama that Raquel was involved in, concerning the OTHER Tom, Tom Schwartz.
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Raquel had been accused of making out with Tom Schwartz at Coachella, who had been previously married to cast member Katie. They broke up, and Katie drunkenly told Sheana that she wanted him to "move on," which Sheana took as the green light to set him up with Raquel. NOT a great move. Katie was later furious about it, and now Raquel is tantalizing her, but acting like she didn't do anything at all.
Now it starts to get crazy. In this same interview, which aired the same day all of this news broke, Raquel goes on to talk about how Ariana and Sheana were some of the only girls that have embraced her as part of the group and were there for her during her breakup with James. Katie, though, is "not her friend," so she didn't feel guilty about "making out with Tom."
It turns out, Tom Schwartz may not have been the "Tom" Raquel was making out with at Coachella. Everyone now thinks this was one big cover up story for the fact she has actually been having a full blown affair for months, with Tom Sandoval.
Now we get into what happened this past Thursday night.
Ariana Madix discovered Tom Sandoval was cheating on her after she found a sexually explicit video sent by Raquel Leviss on his phone, Page Six can confirm.
Moments after Madix had watched her beau’s band, Tom Sandoval & The Most Extras, perform Wednesday night, she learned of their “months-long” affair when a selfie video popped up on his phone, People reported on Friday.
Per the outlet, the “Vanderpump Rules” star then scrolled through the text thread where she read their history of inappropriate messages. Immediately after, she and Sandoval left the venue.
A source previously told us that Madix was left “heartbroken” over the affair as she had “no idea there were any issues.”
“Ariana was blindsided by the cheating,” the source told us, adding that they had been “affectionate in public recently.”
Meanwhile, Madix also feels “betrayed” by Leviss after the former “was there for her” when she called off her engagement to fellow co-star James Kennedy.
The 37-year-old has since kicked Sandoval out of their Los Angeles home as he was photographed packing his suitcases into a friend’s car and driving off.
YIKES. Also noted, that when Ariana found this video on Tom's phone, MID SHOW, she sent it to Sheana who was with Raquel at the time. Upon seeing it, Sheana apparetly punched Raquel in the face, and the rest of the girls squadded up to take care of their girl Ariana.
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Tom has since put out a statement, not an apology to Ariana, but a plea for his restaurants that are now getting trashed on Yelp. Priorities I guess?
Meanwhile, Raquel is firing her PR team and trying to spin this whole thing to her advantage behind the scenes (according to Deux Moi)
Now we have everyone checking on timelines, and it seems like these two were just fucking around in plain sight. Not even sure how "nobody knew about this" because they seem so obvious! The most offensive, being the fact they wear "matching lightning bolt necklaces" to express their love in secret:
What a fucking mess. Something new comes out every 5 minutes about this story, but all in all, it's a fucking shit show. Luckily, they happen to still be filming this season and it should all be on camera. Even Lisa Vanderpump is coming down from her ivory tower to talk about it this Wednesday on Watch What Happens Live.
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I just don't understand why people don't break up if they want to fuck other people. YOU CAN'T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO!!!! Friend/Girl Code aside, this entire thing could've been avoided if Tom wasn't such a fucking moron and broke up with Ariana when he started thinking about seeing someone else.
Raquel in my mind is almost worse in this scenario. She knows this man is in a long term committed relationship, with a woman who is her FRIEND, who even let her live in their house for a while! This is another thing, apparently this affair was happening WHILE Raquel stayed with Tom and Ariana briefly. Someone reported a story that Ariana once caught Tom coming out of Raquel's room at 4 in the morning, and when asked what he was doing in there, he was said to have been "bringing her water." If I'm Ariana, I'm kicking them both out at this exact moment, but we train ourselves not to see the hurtful things right in front of us.
I'm angrier at Raquel in this situation because she's a woman. Men are stupid, they do dumb shit all the time…we are smarter than this. Or, we SHOULD be smarter than this. If you want to be a shit person and date someone your "close" friend dated for 9 years, that's one thing. But to allow the WORST CASE SCENARIO to happen, with the maximum amount of pain inflicted on your FRIEND, is diabolical. It's selfish, it's gross, it's inexcusable.
I have a feeling we are in for a LOT more of this all week. Keep your heads on as long as you can, Bravo fans, we'll make it through this together.