How do we explain the #Scandoval? In basic terms: A reality star from the Bravo show Vanderpump Rules, Tom Sandoval, allegedly cheated on his longtime girlfriend, Ariana Madix, who is also on the show, with yet another Vanderpump star, Raquel Leviss, who is the ex-fiancée of fellow Pump star, James Kennedy.
But that very convoluted sentence is the equivalent of saying JFK was murdered by Lee Harvey Oswald, end of story. There is so much more. A hilarious amount more. A truly daunting amount more, which I will do my absolute best to lay out in this article. It is a story ripe with theories floated by internet sleuths, complicated webs of romantic overlap, and the deeply weird history of a reality show that’s been running for a decade.
Here’s my best attempt at breaking this entire thing down into some kind of discernible bit of text. But before we get to the (alleged) cheating, its history, and the theories, we need to go over some facts.
The show
Vanderpump began as a Real Housewives spinoff of sorts. Scheana Shay, a castmember, worked at SUR, the Los Angeles restaurant owned by Real Housewives of Beverly Hill star Lisa Vanderpump. Shay unknowingly had an affair with the husband of another housewife. That drama helped birth Vanderpump Rules, which initially traced the lives and drama of the wannabe actors/models/etc. who worked at SUR. A decade and a few cast members later, the show now follows a mishmosh of people who work at SUR and those who don’t.
Basically, the show created micro-celebrities (also known as Bravolebrities) out of its cast — so now it’s just a show that follows those people.
The key #Scandoval players
OK, let’s meet the people. Other cast members will inevitably come up, but these are the four major players in this scandal.
Tom Sandoval
Sandoval is a longtime cast member of Vanderpump Rules. He’s been there since the beginning. He fancies himself a Renaissance man of sorts: a model, actor, and musician, and not much good at any of those things. He was previously in a relationship with former cast member Kristen Doute, who had alleged (without proof) that Sandoval cheated on her with Madix.
Ariana Madix
Madix joined the cast in Season 2. Her and Sandoval have been partners for years, own a house together, and repeatedly stated they were life partners despite not wanting marriage.
Raquel Leviss
Leviss joined the cast in Season 5. She was dating cast member James Kennedy, a self-styled DJ. They got engaged before calling it quits last year.
Tom Schwartz
Schwartz is Sandoval’s bestie. He was married to cast member Katie Maloney before a very public divorce last year. Schwartz is the more laid-back, man-child of the Tom duo. Together they opened the bar TomTom under the guidance of Lisa Vanderpump before striking out on their own with another bar called Schwartz & Sandy’s.
The scandal
OK, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this thing.
This season of the Vanderpump Rules has been all about relationship struggles, primarily the divorce of beloved cast members Schwartz and Maloney. And, let’s not forget, Leviss and Kennedy had called off an engagement — and the hot-headed DJ had already moved on with a new girlfriend.
Amid all that, there were rumors that Schwartz and Leviss had made out at Coachella. To make things worse, Leviss kept sort of…openly flirting with Schwartz. Keep in mind: She’s ostensibly friends with Maloney and Madix, so all of this public flirting crossed several girl codes. The most recent episode that aired this week showed Leviss admitting to Maloney that she had floated the idea of making out to Schwartz.
Come to find out, the public discovers that no, no, no it wasn’t that Tom who was cozy with Leviss. It was none other than Sandoval, you know the one still in a longterm relationship. TMZ first broke the news that Sandoval and Leviss were engaged in an affair and that Madix apparently found explicit messages and videos proving such. Soon enough, incremental details of the affair and breakup flooded the pages of TMZ, Page Six, Reddit, and pretty much everywhere else online. There are lots of smaller details to go over later but the biggest thing: This was reportedly not a one-off cheating incident. A source told People that the affair had been going on for at least six months.
Vanderpump is a show basically built on infidelity — the history there is so deep we do not have the time — but this incident comes amid a downturn in popularity for the show that once headlined Bravo’s non-Housewives offerings. It’s also the kind of cheating scandal the show hasn’t really seen: It’s an affair within the group dealing with a couple — Sandoval and Madix — who had planned to spend their lives together. Madix was even seen supporting his band at a gig as recently as last Wednesday.
“This is someone [Madix] thought she knew; someone she planned to spend the rest of her life with. You can’t even put into words that betrayal,” People quoted a source,
Eventually, Sandoval all but confirmed the affair. In an Instagram post he said he understood the anger directed at him — nearly all fans are firmly on Madix’s side — but that to please leave his bar Schwartz & Sandy’s out of it, which had been flooded with bad reviews on platforms like Yelp and Google.
Noticeably absent from the initial statement: Madix, who apparently noticed that herself. Sandoval finally addressed her in a statement in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
He wrote, in part:
“I want to first and foremost apologize to everyone I’ve hurt through this process. Most of all, I want to apologize to Ariana. I made mistakes, I was selfish, and made reckless decisions that hurt somebody I love. No one deserves to feel that pain so traumatically and publicly. I can only imagine how devastating this has been for Ariana and everyone around us. I feel really horrible about that. My biggest regret is that I dishonored Ariana. I never meant to disappoint so many people, including our loving families and friends.”
On Wednesday, we finally got some confirmation and an apology from Leviss herself.
“I want to apologize for my actions and my choices foremost to Ariana, and to my friends and the fans so invested in our relationships. There is no excuse, I am not a victim and I must own my actions and I deeply regret hurting Ariana,” Leviss told Entertainment Tonight.
Those are the broad strokes of the #Scandoval, but there’s so much more. Because as with any other juicy news, the internet sleuths are on the case.
The theories, the gossip, and all the rest
So now that we know the basics of the scandal, let’s get to the juice. To be frank, there is a 0.0 percent chance I could include every bit of gossip about this situation because it is infinite. If you’re not a Bravo person, you won’t get it, but the network and its shows inspire a certain kind of fandom. The fervor surrounding this is affair has been rabid and people have been hard at work uncovering every last breadcrumb on the internet.
Let’s dig into a few of the theories, bits of gossip, and other tidbits circulating around the #Scandoval. Because it’s easy to believe this affair was imminently obvious if you knew where to look.
The matching necklaces
The good folks on Reddit — where else — noted soon after the news breaking that both Sandoval and Leviss had frequently worn lightning bolt necklaces lately. This was backed up — or, let’s be real, maybe reverse-engineered — with a post on Reddit from someone claiming to be a friend of Raquel. These sorts of stories get spread like wildfire by Bravo fan accounts online, which are basically treating this affair like Watergate.
Now, of course a lot of these details are to be taken with a huge grain of salt. For instance, that random account claiming to be Leviss’s pal stated that Leviss would stay the night at Sandoval and Madix’s home, carrying out the affair right under the couple’s roof. It also claimed Sandoval has been putting off the breakup for months. Yet, the sourcing comes down to “trust me, bro.” Some of this could be true, but it’s there’s no way to tell.
The Tom of it all
The Toms are inseparable. Naturally, some folks have wondered if Schwartz was covering — knowingly or not — for Sandoval’s mess. After all, it’s quite strange the Leviss was so obviously pursuing Schwartz on camera and even playing along in press interviews at the opening of Schwartz & Sandy’s. People have even floated the idea that Sandoval was the Tom spotted making out with Leviss at Coachella and that Schwartz was a convenient fall guy.
This would be interesting, considering the drama playing out in the season currently airing. Leviss effectively wiggled out of drama in last week’s episode because Maloney believe she wasn’t smart enough to plan an affair with Schwartz. Maloney believed Leviss got the idea put in her head and that she couldn’t pull off being the villian.
“Raquel is not smart enough to come up with something this diabolical on her own,” Maloney said in the episode. “She’s literally the human equivalent of cotton candy.”
Perhaps not so much.
Halloween and hoodies
I swear it’s like Sandoval and Leviss wanted people to know something was up. First of all, Leviss wore a TomTom hoodie onstage at last year’s BravoCon, and interesting choice for an event where the cast members typically get glammed up. At the time, people speculated this was a shot at Maloney and her apparent interest in Schwartz. Now, with the Sandoval affair out, it could be read differently.
Not to be outdone, when Halloween rolled around, Sandoval dressed as Leviss. He donned a wig to match her hair and the very same TomTom hoodie.
The cast chooses sides
Spoiler alert: Pretty much everyone has sided with Madix. Kennedy, a friend of Sandoval and typically cast as the villain in his relationship with Leviss, has been taking a victory lap. All the women in the cast, especially, have rallied around Madix. They’ve been spotted going to her house, wine in hand, while Shay has posted videos of her dancing and singing with Madix, apparently taken at a concert.
Watch What Happens Live drama
So much drama in the Bravo-verse traces back to Watch What Happens Live, the late-night show hosted by Andy Cohen, the brains behind everything Bravo. Unconfirmed rumors have suggested Shay — who is tight with Madix — may have physically confronted Leviss last Wednesday after they both appeared on the late-night show. That would align with the rumored timeline of the scandal breaking — that Madix discovered the apparent affair after Sandoval performed with his band. There has been no confirmation a confrontation occurred but US Weekly reported that Leviss has filed a restraining order against Shay.
Again, the physical altercation is just a rumor, but Shay did like a tweet that said, “If what they are saying @scheana did after WWHL is true she is the ULTIMATE RIDE OR DIE friend.”
The statement from Leviss also indicated some incident may have occurred, but, again, nothing has been confirmed and Shay’s name wasn’t mentioned.
“Although I chose to be on a reality show accepting the good and bad that comes with it, beyond my own actions I have been physically assaulted, lost friendships, received death threats and hate emails in addition to having had my privacy violated,” Leviss told ET in a statement.
“Send it to Daryl”
Lawyers, of course, have already gotten involved. Leviss’s attorney has reportedly contacted cast members to warn them not to share any intimate videos involving Leviss and Sandoval, claiming it was filmed without her consent and subject to revenge porn laws.
Cast member Lala Kent, who famously once called Leviss a “Bambi-eyed bitch,” wasn’t pleased that the lawyer contacted her directly. She brought up her own lawyer by name in a phrasing that is sure to last the test of time.
“Raquel: Tell your little Mickey Mouse lawyer that if he has stuff to send over, he can send things to my lawyer. Same with the rest of my friends and cast, alright?” she said in a video posted to Instagram.
“I don’t know if you know how this works, I know you’re pretty brand new to the game. Didn’t last long — look what you did with your fucking 15 minutes. You have something to send over, you can send it to my lawyer,” she added. “I don’t want to see that ever. Send it to DARYL!” (There is, of course, now “send it to Daryl” merch.)
So what now?
What now, indeed. For one, the tenth season of Vanderpump Rules is still freaking airing. The apparent affair is playing out in real time, and we’ll be able to watch the upcoming episodes knowing information the cast members — aside from Leviss and Sandoval, apparently — are without. When the news broke, Bravo fired up the cameras to, one assumes, get reactions from the cast. We’ll get some kind of response to the scandal this season, which is a rarity for a reality show. Until then, folks will be pouring over the episodes like the Zapruder film to suss out new theories.
Cohen said on his radio show that it’s his understanding Sandoval and Leviss are still seeing one another. Sandoval has been spotted visiting her apartment, so that adds up.
In a show basically built on cheating — we didn’t even touch on scandals involving former iconic cast members like Jax, Stassi, and others — this is the scandal that beats them all. The show, which had struggled to find its footing amid cast turnover, is now must-see TV. Get your popcorn and outrage ready.
