Tom Sandoval opened up about how Raquel Leviss hurt him after their months-long affair on the premiere episode of his new podcast on Thursday.
As the Vanderpump Rules star, 40, also looked back on their cringeworthy finale scene, suggested it was forced, and explained how he made money after “Scandoval,” Sandoval admitted to losing friends after cheating on longtime girlfriend Ariana Madix, 38, and detailed the finale fight of season 11.
“There was a fight,” Sandoval confirmed on the September 28 episode of Everybody Loves Tom. “I see this guy running away from a way bigger guy. And the bigger guy is going after the guy who threw the glass of wine. I got wine slung all over me. I didn’t know what was going on at that time because I didn’t see that one of the guys had an earpiece in so I didn’t know if he was like security or what. I just thought maybe two people were [fighting] so I immediately jumped in to sort of like separate them.”
“Then I saw that this guy was actually security, and then the other guy that was causing the issue picked up a chair, and I went to grab the chair, and then somebody else grabbed him and pulled him out,” Sandoval continued.
While what started the fight remains a mystery, Sandoval admitted that he’s currently on the outs with a lot of people.
“I lost a lot of friends in this whole situation and a lot of it has to do with the fact that it’s not easy to be my friend right now, and it definitely wasn’t back then,” he explained. “[People] seen with me would get so much hate.”
“I had to untag and delete pictures of me and my brother,” Sandoval shared, signaling to the backlash they received.
Even Sandoval’s bandmates from Tom Sandoval & the Most Extras received hate. But because they would have been “blacklisted” if they canceled their tour dates post-“Scandoval,” Sandoval and his group kept them on the calendar.
“People thought I was living some sort of rockstar life, living out my dreams. I know [Tom Schwartz] and other people were confused about that, but obviously, I had to make money,” he noted. “I was supposed to shoot Winter House at one point, that fell through. Obviously, endorsements stopped coming in so I had to tour.”
While Sandoval didn’t film Winter House season three earlier this year, as intended, he suggested that Bravo lured him with the idea in order to collect additional scenes for Pump Rules season 10 in regard to his and Raquel’s relationship.
“They’re like, ‘Look, we’re not gonna let you film Winter House unless you film with [Scheana Shay] and [Lisa Vanderpump], and you start filming again.’ So they dangled that carrot in front of me,” he revealed.
Sandoval went on to say that he and Raquel were both uncomfortable filming the season 10 finale.
“The day after the story broke, we went to her apartment… we were very uncomfortable, like really uncomfortable, like there were production lights everywhere. We’re shell shocked, obviously our world’s crumbling, we haven’t slept so we were kinda just like pretending, like almost acting,” Sandoval shared. “It felt weird and gross, like making out with your mistress at your wife’s funeral, like it’s f*cking gross. We felt it was wrong. We’re like f*ck this, we’re not filming anymore, and she went to Arizona the next day. I stayed here because I was supposed to film Winter House.”
As for how Raquel hurt him, Sandoval said there were “a couple of things that really hurt my feelings,” including her “saying she was alone through this.”
“I cared and have always cared so deeply for her well-being throughout this whole situation,” he insisted. “[And] for her to come out and say you were never in love, it’s like so you came into a relationship and you carried on for this long and did all of it for a period of seven months, and you didn’t even love the person, like that to me makes it so much worse.”
Vanderpump Rules season 11 is expected to premiere on Bravo sometime later this year or in early 2024.