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Ariana Madix isn’t too fond of the claims that she lost Tom Sandoval in the way she got him.
Following comparisons between Sandoval’s affair with Raquel Leviss and the relationship the two of them had during his relationship with Kristen Doute years ago, the Vanderpump Rules star opened up about Tom Schwartz‘s involvement, her sex life with Sandoval, and the breakup conversations they had before he was caught cheating.
“He would be so jealous of me hanging out with my best friend Logan and he’d be like, ‘I feel like a third wheel when I go out with you guys,’” Ariana said of Sandoval on the May 24 episode of the Call Me Daddy podcast. “And I’m like, ‘Well because you go outside and you are on the phone.’”
According to Ariana, she began spending more time with friends because Sandoval was “not coming home and not wanting to do the same things.”
“I filled that absence with the most incredible people I know, which are my friends,” she explained.
While fans have seen a lot between Ariana and Sandoval in recent weeks, both on the finale and the reunion, Ariana said there were “way worse things” that weren’t seen.
“At one point he was like, ‘Oh well, I’ll keep taking care of the house like I always do.’ You have an assistant. He says, ‘Hey, we need this.’ And she goes and gets it,” Ariana noted.
Still, at times, she does miss her former partner.
“I would say [I miss our] inside jokes, being goofballs together, the fun funny just stupid stuff,” she revealed.
In the months since “Scandoval” broke, Sandoval has claimed that he attempted to break up with Ariana on numerous occasions.
“He’s talking about those conversations that we filmed… I don’t know if that looked like an attempt to break up to you, but it didn’t look like it to me,” Ariana shared. “That was in September and then we had literally all the way up until Valentine’s Day.”
On Valentine’s Day, Sandoval got Ariana flowers and took her to dinner at Schwartz & Sandy’s.
“He pulled out a bottle of wine from our first trip we ever took together… We had celebrated our nine-year anniversary at Musso and Frank’s on January 1… We were having sex in January like multiple times,” she confirmed.
Also on Valentine’s Day, Ariana and Sandoval “went out for drinks” and Raquel and other friends showee up.
“Then we went home and we were started kissing and he was like, ‘I had to stop you.’ And then that’s when he we had this breakup conversation,” she continued. “Then at the end of that conversation was ‘Well, let’s continue this conversation.’”
After Sandoval admitted to feeling like he was having a “midlife crisis,” Ariana told him that if the two of them were to split, she would quit Pump Rules and move from Los Angeles.
“I said, ‘If we break up, I’m probably going to quit the show. I will probably leave Los Angeles. I will probably deactivate my Instagram.’ And he found that to be like very offensive,” she recalled. “I was never saying that I was going to kill myself [as Sandoval alleged]. I was saying that this life will be over for me because I will go do something else.”
Ariana confessed that the discussion was “definitely not” a “positive conversation” but insisted she never said a thing about “physically harming” herself.
In the days that followed, Sandoval and Ariana “had more conversations.”
“I said, ‘If you think this is over, you will have to be the one to end it because I’m committed. I’m actually thinking that this is like the potential for us to, like, be even to be great, because we’re talking about stuff now that we haven’t talked about yet,’” she recalled.
Looking back, Ariana said Sandoval knew what she meant by her claims and finds it offensive that she would target her mental health in the way he has.
“I have dealt with suicidal ideation before and I have been in very very deep dark places before. So to then be flippant about it as if that’s also something about me that makes me like deserve to be treated poorly is pretty awful,” she acknowledged.
As for their sex life, Ariana said that while she struggled with her self-image at the start of their relationship.
“I was very excited that someone was like really into me because the relationship I was in previously… I was being criticized very heavily about my body, my personality, just everything,” she said. “So that was very exciting. [But] I think that our sex life waxed and waned at different points.”
As her relationship with Sandoval progressed, Ariana said her main desire was for “quality time.”
“He would complain about frequency of sex and it felt like he wanted to have sex but I was like, but do you want to have sex with me? Is it about me? Or is it just about the act? He wasn’t really great with like, descriptors. I would be like, ‘Be specific. Like, what do you like about me?’ I want to know those things,” she admitted.
As fans now know, Sandoval was sleeping with Raquel for the last seven months of his relationship with Ariana. And, while there are many repulsive factors of their affair, several stick out for Ariana
“The flying her to different places, I know that Watch What Happens Live appearance, where Schwartz was covering his mouth and acting all weird, it’s cuz she was in the hotel room. She was there in New York,” Ariana revealed. “He was using like other people’s credit cards and things to like basically making them pay for things and then Venmo-ing them later… It makes me really upset because I feel like he put people in a position that they felt like they didn’t know what to do.”
“And having the band in the touring and stuff like that, I feel like there’s a very easy way and it’s like, well, I have to be out of town and then she could then be flown to wherever that show was. And I would have no idea because he’s coming home exactly when he’s supposed to come home. Of course he’s out late. He’s playing a show.”
In addition to reportedly being involved in Sandoval and Raquel’s rendezvous in New York, Ariana claims Schwartz was far more involved that he’s “willing to let on.”
“Because the recording was at Schwartz’s and he apparently felt real comfortable there, in that sad sad apartment,” Ariana noted, giving a nod to the NSFW FaceTime video she found of Sandoval and Raquel.
While Sandoval suggested on the finale that Ariana would’ve learned of his and Raquel’s affair sooner if she’d followed him, Ariana can’t fathom why that would be her responsibility.
“It’s like, how much effort should I be putting forth in a relationship? Should I be stalking my partner in order to know for sure like what they’re doing?” she wondered. “The Find My iPhone app, I could see where the device is all were located and they were always located somewhere that they should be: The band rehearsal space or Schwartz’s apartment,” she shared.
As for claims of losing him how she got him, Ariana had firm thoughts.
“What’s to be very clear, I didn’t lose him. He lost me,” she stated. “But I think that I trusted in him so much even like as a friend back then and I trusted him so much like during our relationship that I trusted his perspective on things and I think that I was caught up in whatever he told me.”
In hindsight, Ariana admitted she could’ve dug deeper into the status of Sandoval and Kristen’s romance but noted that their dynamic was “toxic” at the time.
“I think that it’s something that just goes to show that that’s kind of maybe just what he does, is he says things like ‘I tried to end it’ or ‘Oh, we’re broken up,’ or things like whatever it is. I would like to think that maybe this thing that’s happening right now will prevent him from ever doing that again with any other person. Just because I think it’s time to put that little tactic to bed,” she added.
The Vanderpump Rules season 10 reunion is currently airing on Wednesdays at 9/8c on Bravo.