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Ariana Madix claims Raquel Leviss‘ interview on Bethenny Frankel‘s podcast made her both “sad” and “angry” — both due to what Raquel said and what Bethenny said.
Days after the three-part interview went live, the Vanderpump Rules star, 38, appeared on Scheana Shay‘s podcast, where she reacted to a number of claims made by Raquel, 28, including her allegations of their supposedly fake friendship, her comments about the reported “abuse” she sustained at the reunion, and more.
“I wish her the best in Arizona. I think that she’s about to be 30 or something and she can go live a long, happy life. I just think that staying away from all this is probably the best move,” Ariana told Scheana, 38, on the August 25 episode of Scheananigans of Raquel’s decision to relocate from Los Angeles to Arizona and quit Pump Rules.
In March, after Ariana caught Raquel and then-boyfriend, Tom Sandoval, 40, in an affair by coming across an NSFW video of Raquel on Sandoval’s phone, she and her castmates were met with letters of cease and desist from Raquel, who reportedly feared the video would be shared.
Right away, Ariana’s lawyer responded to the letter by assuring her it wouldn’t happen.
“My lawyer made all of that very clear. When she sent a cease and desist to the cast as a precaution, [which I] definitely think [is] a great idea [and] the right thing to do… My lawyer responded to said precaution with very thorough, very clear information that proved and showed it was like, ‘Absolutely not. Here you go. Here’s proof,’” she revealed.
And in addition to applauding Raquel for taking the precaution, she felt a conversation with Sandoval should also take place.
“That is a big issue and that’s something that she should address with him directly,” she said of Raquel’s claim that the clip was recorded without her consent.
After then noting that “it does” seem like Raquel is still protecting Tom in ways, Ariana confirmed she has never “shown or sent that video” to anyone.
“I don’t have it. I did not hold onto it for any reason. That video was gone, gone, gone, gone, gone before I ever even called her on the phone,” she stated. “I saw maybe about five seconds of that. I wasn’t sitting there like, popping popcorn for movie night… I know that she said that people know about what’s in it. It’s very simple. I’m not going to get into the details but there’s not a lot of details. It’s straightforward.”
In recent weeks, Ariana has been seen with Sandoval on a number of occasions, leading many to believe that the two of them have filmed together for the upcoming 11th season of Pump Rules. However, as Ariana clarified, the two of them don’t actually film together.
“There’s been some confusion because there’s been some all-cast things that have happened where I’ve been in the same vicinity as him but to make it very clear, he and I don’t film together,” she explained. “I have not forgiven him. We are not cool. That has not changed at all.”
As for Raquel saying she and Sandoval didn’t have longevity and were staying together for the sake of their brand, Ariana noted that the fact that they were together for nine years says otherwise.
“Nine years, which is about a third of my life, almost a quarter of my life, that’s what we in the real world call longevity. If she was being told other stuff about brand, business, [etc], she was being told by the other party in the relationship as a way to justify or get away with what was happening behind my back,” Ariana suspected. “If that is the opinion, that is an opinion held by one person in the relationship and that person is not me. [I] never once ever looked at my relationship as a business or a brand, that’s f*cking weird … [And] the only brand and business thing that we did together was the book and Alka-Seltzer.”
Ariana went on to say that Sandoval and Raquel simply “didn’t care” about her.
“They didn’t care about me at all. They didn’t care that Charlotte died. They didn’t care that my grandma died. They didn’t care about what this might do to me,” she said. “Every ‘I love you’ was a fake. Every time I thought we were all joking around having fun, it was a fake. It was like an inside joke between the two of them. I was a joke… and so yeah, I’m gonna have some pretty harsh words for people who treated me like a literal piece of trash, that didn’t care what happened to me at all and still to this day have not been remorseful about it.”
During the season 10 reunion, which was filmed just three weeks after Sandoval and Raquel’s affair was exposed, Ariana and her co-stars, of course, lashed out at both parties. And while some have suggested she was too hard on Raquel, like Bethenny, Ariana denied any such thing.
“I believe my response to what was done to me in that moment was exactly what I would think any person would respond with in that moment,” she posed. “Hearing Bethenny say something about, ‘If that was my child I would’ve murdered someone,’ based on some words that were said in response to what I endured for seven months and had just found out about, well, you know, I’d like to say that I have a mother who feels pretty strongly about what was done to me for seven months behind my back, and she certainly doesn’t think that me responding to all that with some harsh and warranted words is the worst thing that can happen.”
“If I sat down and had a conversation with her today, would I say the same things? Probably not,” she continued, “but I was only going to speak to her that one time and never again. I didn’t have any other communication with her and I will never have any other communication with her.”
Regarding the suggestion that she and Raquel weren’t friends off-screen, Ariana felt the idea was put out there to make the affair “not that big of a deal” as Scheana suspected Raquel was “attempting to change the narrative that she slept with her best friend’s man.”
“I’m not sure whose decision it was to try to diminish the friendships and try to diminish what is a very real show… but it was a bad decision and it was a very untrue statement or series of statements to make… All that does is diminish what I went through and all these things that were very and are very real,” she shared, adding that Raquel’s claim was “very hurtful.”
“That was a very obvious lie,” she went on. “That statement could be so easily refuted with photographic evidence, the Saturday night before the Wednesday night that I found this out was an example of her and I hanging out off-camera at Avalon. If she feels otherwise, that sucks because I was very much under the impression that we were, like, really good friends… If all of that was fake to her, that just really sucks for me because it wasn’t fake to me.”
Looking back on Raquel’s interview, which she read recaps of online, Ariana confessed, “It has impacted [my mental health].”
“Some of the things that were said made me really sad, made me angry,” she explained. “I understand that with Rachel, she’s still going along with things that were told to her… I can understand why she put a lot of weight onto what was told to her, so part of me is like, ‘Okay, I get why, even though you should know better at this point that those things are not true, you’re choosing to believe him.’”
As for Bethenny, Ariana fired back at the RHONY alum for suggesting that because she still lives with Sandoval, she must’ve forgiven him.
“Bethenny is who I feel like should have known better, and who actually I think upset me more in the things that were said because even I guess as recently as whatever podcast she did after the fact, she said, ‘Ariana’s forgiven him.’ I’m like ‘Why are you speaking for me? First of all, I don’t know you, and you don’t know what the f*ck you’re talking about, lady.’ So there were a lot of things said by her that actually I think made me more angry because I feel like she should know better,” Ariana stated.
Vanderpump Rules season 11 is expected to premiere on Bravo sometime later this year or in early 2024.