Tom Schwartz revealed if he was “embarrassed” by former flame Jo Wenberg after she suspected such on the latest episode of Vanderpump Rules.
As several members of the cast shaded him for unfairly leading Jo on, Schwartz, 40, looked back on their time together, admitting he was in a tough position with the hairstylist but insisting that the two of them had a “clear line of communication.”
“I wasn’t embarrassed by her,” Schwartz clarified on the April 9 episode of the Vanderpump Rules: After Show.
During Tuesday’s episode, Jo tagged along as Schwartz attended a singles night, and unsurprisingly, things got a bit awkward after Schwartz kissed another woman.
“By that point, I had made up my mind definitively that I did not want to be in a relationship with Jo,” he recalled.
But when asked if Jo was simply a rebound from his broken marriage to Katie Maloney, 37, Schwartz denied any such thing, confirming she was more than just that.
“I don’t want to relegate her to a rebound girl because I don’t think she was. We became really close friends, too. It wasn’t just an occasional hookup buddy,” he stated. “We were super tight. But I still was so f*cking fond of her so I was trying to navigate. It’s a tough position because when someone digs you and you still want to maintain a close friendship but you’re ready to move on, I don’t know if it’s realistic or healthy.”
Months after their singles night drama, and weeks after going public with his new girlfriend, Sophia Skoro, 23, Schwartz said that his relationship with Jo is “a significantly watered-down version of what it used to be,” although they’re “still friends.”
“I think she’s hanging out with somebody, I’m hanging out with somebody. We’re super cool. There’s definitely no bad blood or hard feelings. [And] I don’t regret it,” he said of their romance. “It was super fun. I think we really enriched each other’s lives for that stretch.”
Looking back at singles night, Schwartz said he’s not one to go to those types of events and “had no expectations” going into it. He then said that Jo “kind of invited herself.”
“But also, at that point, we had talked about … We had informally moved on …. I thought we were on the same page,” he noted.
While Schwartz’s time with Jo was short-lived, he looked back lovingly on their relationship, saying Jo “came into [his] life like a bat out of heaven” and denying he tried to hide her.
“It just felt right but at the same time, it felt like it maybe had a limited shelf life … It was like a supernova or something,” he explained.
Meanwhile, James Kennedy, 32, and Brock Davies, 33, suggested Schwartz should have been more clear with Jo about where their relationship was headed.
“I always felt like Jo was in love with Schwartz, and then Schwartz would just call her after a bottle of Good Lovin’ on a Tuesday night. At 2 a.m., text comes through, ‘Hey, where you at?’ It’s kind of f*cked up to say, but I feel like Schwartz was leading her on,” James suspected. “Her emotions were all in, 100 percent. I felt bad.”
“I was concerned because of the amount of emotion I could get from her and then what I got from Schwartz on the relationship was not the same response. I was like, ‘You need to clear this up,’” Brock agreed, adding that Schwartz “likes limbo … [and] confusion.”
According to Ariana Madix, 38, Schwartz’s treatment of Jo was reminiscent of how he treated Katie early on in their romance.
“I don’t know, just giving you the ring on a string,” she stated.
“Just enough to keep you hanging on,” Katie replied.
“But there’s a promise of something, eventually,” Ariana continued. “You and Tom Sandoval are probably the only people who have ever flown to North Florida to see Tom Schwartz’s family, and now Jo is the third person. And if you’re sitting there and you’re Jo, you’re probably thinking, ‘The only other girl that’s done this is his ex-wife.’ Why wouldn’t you think that’s your boyfriend? I would think that.”
Then, when Katie suggested that Schwartz made it seem like he didn’t invite her, Ariana asked, “Well, how did she get the address? They clearly did a lot of planning.”
Reflecting on her own experiences, Scheana Shay, 38, said her former flame Adam Spott did the same thing with her.
“[He] brought me home to meet the family for his brother’s surprise birthday, but everyone there thought we were dating, but he’s like, ‘No, no, we’re not,’” she recalled.
Also on the Pump Rules: After Show, Schwartz said he did not feel that he led Jo on.
“We always kept a clear line of communication. If it wasn’t for that, I would probably say guilty as charged. The summer before was just different because it was kinda fiery and passionate and fun and crazy. But by the time we had cameras up and we were filming, it just wasn’t the same. It had sort of fizzled out,” he explained.
Vanderpump Rules season 11 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on Bravo.