Tom Sandoval doesn’t understand why Rachel “Raquel” Leviss continues to talk about him.
After the Vanderpump Rules cast was seen reacting to an interview Raquel, 29, did on Bethenny Frankel‘s podcast on the latest episode of the show, Sandoval, 41, suggested his ex may not be ready to move on from their sordid affair as Ariana Madix, 38, clapped back at Raquel’s suggestion that they weren’t really friends.
“If she actually really does want to move on then maybe she should stop talking about me on a weekly basis,” Sandoval stated on the April 16 episode of the Pump Rules: After Show before changing his tune.
“I take that back,” he clarified. “The girl’s gotta eat. She’s gotta make some money.”
Although some assumed Raquel was paid for her interview on Bethenny’s podcast, she reportedly appeared on her show for free.
“That’s crazy to me that someone let her do that without getting paid,” Jax Taylor, 44, noted as Sandoval signaled to the irony of the situation.
“It just was rich and ironic to hear her talk about how Rachel’s getting exploited yet she’s literally doing the same thing,” Sandoval said of the Real Housewives of New York City alum.
“It’s so annoying. I’m so over talking about podcasts. It should be unallowed,” James Kennedy, 32, complained.
While chatting with Bethenny in August 2023, Raquel caught the ire of many, including James, as she downplayed her friendship with Ariana, suggesting that the two were merely co-stars and acquaintances.
“Sure, she was closer to Tom because she was sucking his pee-pee, but for her to downgrade the friendship with Ariana, it sounds a lot like when Tom downgrades his friendship with me,” he noted.
According to Ariana, she felt that Raquel made a number of statements during her interview with Bethenny that were “easily refutable.”
“I feel like her saying that we weren’t that close of friends is a f*cked up thing to say because that just shows that you didn’t care about me, but you’re like openly admitting it,” she explained. “In my reality, we were very close friends. She stayed at my house when we were out of town. I let her dog stay there. We spent holidays together, we would travel together, there’s really no world in which we weren’t close unless you were being fake the whole time.”
“This is called a person living in de-lu-lu land,” Lala Kent, 33, agreed. “I think she said that to make herself feel better about her actions.”
During an early episode of the currently airing season of Pump Rules, fans watched as Lala reached out to Raquel after a years-long feud with a kind message. Now, looking back, she wishes she never made such a gesture.
“I would’ve never reached out to her had I known that that’s what she was gonna go and do,” Lala noted.
Scheana Shay, 38, also had major regrets after allowing Raquel to live in her Los Angeles apartment for months, only for the situation to be downplayed by her former friend.
“The way that she tried to spin helping me out with my cat for three weeks and doing my podcast when she literally came to me and asked to be on my podcast with her whole thing of notes written of things she wanted to say, and she wanted her voice to be heard after her breakup with James,” Scheana explained. “Raquel needed a place to live and I was like, ‘You can have my apartment, watch my cat for three weeks, and then I’ll pick her up in a few weeks.’ I thought she was only staying til the end of February. Then it was like, ‘Can I stay again…’ By June, I was like, ‘B*tch, we are done with this apartment. You need to figure something out.’”
Lala said Raquel also wanted to appear on her podcast.
“She said that to me a few years ago as if having you was like having Beyonce. F*ck off,” Lala said. “We needed a filler, b*tch, and you just happened to be free because you’re always free.”
While Raquel suggested that her friendship with Scheana was mutually beneficial, Brock Davies, 33, disagreed, although he admitted he “felt sorry” for her at the time she began living at their home.
“She gives off this ‘help me, poor me’ and so we wanted to be there for her,” he reasoned. “[But] there’s nothing mutually beneficial about that relationship if it comes to numbers.”
Meanwhile, Brittany Cartwright, 35, said she knew that Ariana and Raquel had “always” been “super close.”
“She was over at their house all the time. How can she even say that? That is so disrespectful. Also, that is so f*cking shady,” Brittany stated.
As for Katie Maloney, 37, she suggested Bethenny didn’t fully understand the situation when she interviewed Raquel last summer.
“This person whose podcast she did is fully not understanding the history and her and the dynamics of this group, this show, y’all’s relationship, everything and so she’s coming from a very wrong place and getting very bad advice,” she stated.
Following the interview, Ariana recalled, Bethenny aired follow-up episodes in which she expressed frustration in the backlash she received.
“She was all pissed that she was getting backlash for the episode because people were like ‘You didn’t know anything about the subject.’ And then she was all pissed that she was getting backlash. It’s like, did no one learn from Howie Mandel?” Ariana wondered.
During another segment of the Pump Rules: After Show, James said that when it came to Sandoval and Raquel’s past romance, he did not believe they were in love.
“It wasn’t true love … You guys were f*cking boning in the bathroom at 4:30 in the morning while you’re f*cking dreading the fact that you have to go upstairs to bed with Ariana so you have to get your d*ck wet one last time,” he stated. “That’s what your love was … It was pure and utter, just a f*cking lusty f*ck fest for God’s sake. She said that on a f*cking podcast.”
James then imagined what Sandoval was telling Raquel about his relationship with Ariana, which continued for several months throughout their affair.
“It’s probably sickening and like horrible because after you were done sh*tting on your relationship with Ariana you crawled, literally, up the stairs into the bed with her and f*cking kissed her good night and woke up and said ‘I love you’ and did it all over again for months,” he noted. “You’re gonna tell me it was true love? Please. Save it.”
Vanderpump Rules season 11 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on Bravo.