Credit: Brandi Benton/startraksphoto.com, Bravo
Tom Sandoval admitted to being suicidal following the pop culture phenomenon now known as “Scandoval,” which saw his months-long affair with Raquel Leviss being thrust into headlines and discussed worldwide.
On the premiere episode of his podcast, the Vanderpump Rules star, 40, looked back on his mental state, spoke of Raquel’s stint in mental health treatment, and confirmed when the two of the last spoke while also offering an update on his living situation with ex-girlfriend Ariana Madix, 38,
“I’m sorry for all the people that I hurt in that process,” Sandoval admitted on the September 28 episode of Everybody Loves Tom as he recalled his secret romance with Raquel. “I’ve definitely definitely have learned a lot and I think that as I continue to learn and reflect on these situations you know all I can do is just try to be better.”
“Obviously, Ariana was somebody that I did love very dearly and you know I would never ever want to hurt somebody like that, even like my worst enemy, but I think that’s why sometimes you end up hurting those people you care about the most is because of your strong connection with them,” he reasoned. “You say that there’s a thin line between love and hate because the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s like indifference.”
Months after Scandoval broke, Sandoval told listeners he got sober shortly after.
“I stopped drinking the day [Raquel] went into the Meadows,” he revealed. “I haven’t drank since I believe it was April 4th or 5th. I didn’t tell a lot of people during the process, I think that kinda helps. I also quit smoking cigarettes. I was kind of at a point where I was chain smoking cigarettes and drinking all day every day. You know, as soon as I got done working out, I’d start drinking. If I wasn’t working out, I was drinking. If I wasn’t drinking, I was working out.”
While Sandoval was deserving of much of the backlash he received, he said it “really sucked” that his Tom Sandoval & the Most Extras bandmates were also impacted.
“What really sucked too was seeing people be really mean to the fellow band members. Maddie (the female singer) used to get it really bad… She’s so great. Such an amazing beautiful person… She would get heckled. It was so bad,” he admitted.
Then, after Sandoval’s longtime friend Kyle Chan noted that Ariana has “softened up quite a bit” recently, Sandoval confirmed recent interactions.
“The other day, I was downstairs making dinner and she came down into the kitchen she got this tower this Monolithic structure of boxes and she just started going through them and stuff that’s been delivered. No eye contact but we were there for like 10 to 15 minutes,” he shared. “Today, she came downstairs, [Billie Lee] was over, and she’s like, ‘What’s up?’ to Billie.”
As for his communication with Raquel, Sandoval revealed they haven’t spoken since “the end of June.”
Continuing on about the early moments of “Scandoval,” Sandoval admitted that things got “really dark” and he “didn’t shower or change [his] clothes for almost a week.”
Although he was initially busy with his tour, things took a turn for the worse once he returned.
“I remember we were just finishing the second leg of our tour. It was when we did like those eight shows in 10 days. I hadn’t slept and I came back, and I remember Ariana [did] a thing for Duracell and there’s like people at my house, the fire alarms going off at my house. My assistant Ann is helping them put together all their shot, like cleaning up and helping stage stuff for them, and there’s this ad being shot that’s directly poking fun at me, and everything that makes me me,” he recalled. “And that same day, Kyle, you sent me this thing [where] Sweet Lady Jane [ was selling] ‘Sandoval is a Liar’ cakes for $400… That was rough and a lot of it had to do with being sleep deprived as well but when you get into that space mentally.”
“I could never understand [suicide before] but when you get into that head space, it’s a domino effect like just your world starts collapsing on itself and you cannot see outside of your feelings. Your peripheral goes away,” he went on. “Your sense of thinking about the future. Your ability to snap out of it goes away, and there were sometimes where I felt very very close. I’m just so glad that I had you. Billie came over that day. I think she took me to a comedy show to get me out of it.”
Adding to Sandoval’s post-“Scandoval” challenges was the fact that he no longer had control of his access to Raquel.
“Initially when all that stuff went down, we were obviously talking to each other all the time, and then she went away to that facility… and I was kind of like at her beck and call in a sense because you [could] never phone in there, no access to anything and so I had to wait for her call which can only happen maybe twice once a day,” he explained. “So then I would get that call from her, it would be like ‘oh my gosh, oh my gosh’ but I was constantly waiting there, and some days, I wouldn’t get that call and it would really affect my mood.”
Vanderpump Rules season 11 is expected to premiere on Bravo sometime later this year or early next year.