Ariana Madrix’s ex Tom Sandoval gets another hit at his character from fling Raquel Leviss.
Raquel "Rachel" Leviss is revealing how she felt pressured by Tom Sandoval to keep their affair's specifics a secret when she really wanted to come clean.
The former cast member of Vanderpump Rules disclosed that Sandoval gave her the order to "stick to a story" he wrote about their shocking encounter in order to lessen the tension before the Bravo series' Season 10 reunion last year.
“The last five minutes of Season 10, you see me break down because I want to come clean and I’m still holding things back because I don’t want to betray Tom because he is the one person that I have left,” she said on her “Rachel Goes Rogue” podcast Thursday.
“In my world, it seemed like he was the only person. He got me. He understood me. He was there for me in all of this time — or so I believed.”
After nine years with Ariana Madix, Sandoval attempted to hide the specifics of his affair with Leviss, but it wasn't until her one-on-one interview with producers at the end of the show that she opened up and revealed them.
In the final moments of the reunion, Leviss recounted talking with a therapist about how she had "betrayed Tom by telling this truth."
She recalled her therapist responding in shock, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa — but didn’t Tom betray you first?”
The Bravo alum later came to see how the 41-year-old singer had tricked her into lying at first about the duration of their relationship even though she knew she "wasn't a good liar."
“I expressed to him that I don’t like lying,” she explained on her podcast.
“He put me in a really bad position with my friendships, and this placement of being on this international reality TV show [meant] that my reputation was on the line.”
Thinking back on the controversy, Leviss also wondered whether Sandoval had deliberately targeted her after her breakup with co-star and ex fiancé James Kennedy, when she was at her most vulnerable.
“He knew I was going through this heartbreak, and I’ve heard him say in his interviews, ‘Oh, Raquel really was coming into her own.’ And that’s what attracted him to me,” she admitted.
Leviss went on to criticise her ex-boyfriend for pursuing her rather than being a friend to her.
“You a–hole. You could have just let me be. Like, let me live,” she ended.
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