Rachel Leviss Shares Where She Stands With ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Cast in Tell-All Podcast
Rachel Leviss will not be in Vanderpump Rules Season 11 following #Scandoval, but fans are finally hearing her side of the story.
After spending 90 days in a trauma therapy center following the intense tabloid aftermath of her affair with former co-star Tom Sandoval, Leviss is back in Los Angeles and is ready to speak out about the cheating scandal that led to her departure from the Bravo reality series.
“I’m really opening that door up again for all the scrutiny and judgment, but the more I think about it, I feel like I’m almost obligated to myself to stand up for myself,” Leviss said in the first episode of Rachel Goes Rogue, which premiered on Monday, January 8. “I would rather speak my truth and share my story and be ridiculed for it than just sit idly by and watch this whole season pan out and not get my story across.”
Sandoval was in a long-term relationship with Vanderpump co-star and live-in partner Ariana Madix when he and Leviss began their affair before Season 10. Leviss had recently split from ex-fiancé and co-star James Kennedy and, as she shared in Rachel Goes Rogue Episode 1, Leviss was feeling hurt that Kennedy had started dating someone new so quickly (Ally Lewber) after their breakup. She says that at the time she was drinking a lot instead of going to therapy to heal her heartbreak, though she maintains this detail was just to explain her mental state at the time of her affair, not to excuse her actions.
As explained in the podcast, Leviss and Sandoval’s first hookup happened in Sandoval’s home, which he shares with Madix. Madix was home and upstairs at the time. Leviss and Sandoval had gone to The Abbey, a bar in West Hollywood, after a day of filming while the rest of the cast had gone elsewhere. This led to Leviss driving Sandoval home, a nightcap in the pool, and a kiss. Leviss recalls Sandoval struggling with the kiss in the moments directly after, saying that Sandoval asked her to wait there for a moment. They went out to her car instead, where they hooked up for the first time.
“Does it even matter who made the first move?” Leviss asks in the episode. “Because it was like, I feel like I’m in this, like, romantic…I feel swept off my feet, I feel so infatuated and like, loved.”
Leviss acknowledges that her affair with Sandoval “was morally wrong,” saying, “I get the anger.” Leviss chose not to return to Vanderpump as she says she understood the pain of seeing a former partner with someone new — and having to be around them in work and social circles. She says she didn’t want to further the pain she caused to Madix.
“Looking back and seeing how much pain I was in interacting with James on camera and seeing his new girlfriend, I could only imagine the pain I would cause by filming in the same environment with Ariana,” she says. “Because being involved with somebody’s boyfriend while they’re still in a relationship is a huge betrayal and so painful as it is, but then to continue working with these people and interacting with them — maybe not even speaking — but like, hearing about what they’re doing and seeing your person that you loved so much and thought that they loved you just as much as you love them be conversing with this other person.”
“It would just be so catastrophic and I didn’t want to do that to Ariana,” Leviss continues. “I didn’t want to put her in that position.”
Lisa Vanderpump, Tom Sandoval, Tom Schwartz, and Rachel Leviss in ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Season 10 reunion (Bravo)
Leviss also left Vanderpump behind so she couldn’t be pulled back into Sandoval’s orbit. He “could get in my ear” if she returned, she explains. She’s not in contact with any of the Vanderpump Rules cast now, but Sandoval did publicly wish her a happy birthday and she wishes he hadn’t.
“I haven’t heard from any of them and I don’t really necessarily want to hear from any of them except for Tom did send me a happy birthday message on my Instagram via comment,” she says. “And he couldn’t have reached out to me via text because I blocked him the day that I got my phone back after treatment, but he could have DM’ed me instead of making a public comment and I’ve been thinking about that a lot.”
Going no contact with Sandoval was a hard process, she admits. “It was a hard process for me to completely cut him out of my life because the story I would tell myself about our relationship that we had,” says Leviss. “It seems so special and it seems so real but when you look at the cold, hard facts and write them down on a piece of paper and see all of those red flags clear as day that will break you out of your denial.”
“And once I was broken out of denial and realize how manipulative he is, I couldn’t put myself in a situation where at my most vulnerable state, it would just probably get me back into those old patterns that I’m trying to break free from,” she continues. “Taking a step back and removing myself from the chaos has allowed me to gain some clarity — actually a lot of clarity on the situation.”
Find out more in Rachel Goes Rogue.
Vanderpump Rules, Season 11 Premieres Tuesday, January 30, 8/7c, Bravo
