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Jax Taylor revealed why he complained to his Vanderpump Rules producers about Tom Sandoval during an appearance on Heather McDonald‘s podcast on Tuesday.
As he also spoke of Raquel Leviss‘ apparent scripting of herself on the Bravo show and alleged stint in a mental health facility, Jax took aim at Sandoval’s participation in the series, admitted to filming a past reality show pilot with Stassi Schroeder, and addressed Sandoval’s rumored money troubles.
“Do you find that weird that Tom paid for [James Kennedy‘s] proposal [to Raquel]? Did he not check his finances?” Jax asked Heather on the May 16 episode of Juicy Scoop.
According to Jax, Sandoval should’ve checked with his “money person” before he dropped a reported $20,000 on James’ since-ended engagement to the woman he later had a months-long affair with behind the back of his now-ex Ariana Madix.
“Now he’s in trouble with the IRS. You’re paying $20,000 for somebody else’s proposal with a girl that you probably were already hooking up with,” Jax suspected. “What Tom does, he does things to look good on TV. He uses this as a decoy. This is his M.O. He does things for other people so he looks good in front of other people but he’s not really a good person.”
Although Jax didn’t specify how much Sandoval allegedly owes to the IRS, or how he would know about the federal debt, he said he feels bad that Ariana is financially tied to him.
“Poor Ariana has to deal with all Tom’s tax issues, liens against his house, IRS owing this, now she has to deal with that because she was connected to him,” he explained. “Little did she know he was borrowing against the house to pay for the restaurant that he’s got going on that’s about to go under.”
While Jax and Sandoval were close friends for many years, their relationship ended years ago, with Jax returning a Samurai sword Sandoval previously gifted him.
“I had to return it. I just didn’t want anything from that guy,” he admitted. “He uses things against people. I put it on his patio. Nothing from him is sincere. I know this guy like the back of my hand. I’ve known him for 20 years.”
“It’s a game. It’s a show. It’s a facade. It’s not real,” he added.
Acknowledging his own past misdeeds, including cheating on his now-wife Brittany Cartwright, Jax said what Sandoval did to Ariana is worse.
“The difference is the way he went about this and his lack of empathy and just the whole affair thing. Everyone on the show has cheated… But it’s never gone to this,” he noted.
Jax also cheated on Stassi. However, before they split, the couple nearly starred in their own show.
“Stassi and I did a little reality show together in the Bahamas for like four days, a pilot,” Jax revealed.
Moving on to Raquel, Sandoval said that while he doesn’t know her as well as everybody else, he believes she’s “going through some things upstairs.”
“I think maybe she needs to get some help,” he told Heather. “I think she’s got some issues… I think she’s got a little bit more than most, and I think maybe the show magnified a lot of that, and I think it’s a very overwhelming show to be on, and I feel like she just wanted to be accepted.”
“I feel like she was maybe lost, trying to figure out where she fit in in society, maybe,” Jax continued. “I think she was trying to look for herself a little bit, and then she found the show, and I think she was just trying to be accepted and fit in where, how can I be the most popular?”
He then nodded to suspicions raised by Peter Madrigal and Dayna Kathan, who suggested Raquel isn’t in a mental health facility, but at a spa.
“I hope she’s not just going to a hotel and saying ‘I’m in a mental health [facility]’ That’s what I heard too, that she’s just staying at a hotel and telling people that she has mental health problems… and using this as a scape goat, I hope that’s not the case,” he shared.
Looking back at his time with Raquel on Pump Rules, Jax said Raquel used to script herself.
“We would catch her literally have a script in her hand, and she would practice her lines, and we would catch her like, ‘Are you reading lines of a reality show that’s supposed to be just off the cuff?’” he recalled. “In her defense, she was just really nervous.”
Jax then commented on his complaints to producers about Sandoval.
“Sandoval was very like ‘I’m not talking about my [relationship]. He never talked about him and Ariana,” Jax explained. “And I had arguments about this off-camera with production. ‘This is bullsh-t. We’re on a reality show together, he always gets away with not talking about his personal things He can always just scapegoat it and go into everybody else’s and tell everybody else how to act.”
“I said this for years: ‘This sh-t’s not fair. We’re all in this together. We’re all making X amount of dollars. You need to put in the work, too,’” he added.
The three-part Vanderpump Rules season 10 reunion begins next Wednesday, May 24, at 9/8c on Bravo.