Heavy/Getty Stassi Schroeder
Stassi Schroeder has broken her silence on the bombshell “Scandoval” that rocked the Bravo world.
On March 3, 2023, news broke that Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval had split up after nine years together following Madix’s discovery that Sandoval had been having a months-long affair with co-star Raquel Leviss. Schroeder, who’s mostly stayed away from commenting on “Vanderpump Rules” drama since she was fired back in 2020, addressed the scandal in the March 8 episode of her podcast, “Straight Up With Stassi.”
Schroeder began by stating that she was unequivocally supporting Madix in the situation and it wasn’t even up for debate. She then slammed Sandoval as “an incredibly selfish, narcissistic, egotistical person who spent 10 years convincing everyone that he was the good guy” on “Pump Rules.” She said that in her opinion, someone would have to be “a new level of evil” to do what he did to an amazing and supportive partner like Madix.
The former SURver, who recorded the podcast on Sunday, March 5, just 48 hours after the news broke, also went in on Leviss for her role in betraying her good friend Madix. “I was very much fooled by Raquel,” Schroeder confessed. She explained that she always thought Leviss was really nice and that she was usually a good judge of character but in this case, she was clearly mistaken.
“It’s all so evil,” Schroeder said, pointing out that for seven months, Leviss had been talking about how great a friend Madix was on podcasts. “To be able to lie like that, it’s an evil that I haven’t met before, with her and Tom,” Schroeder concluded.
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Stassi Schroeder Revealed That Katie Maloney Told Her Tom Schwartz Wasn’t Interested in Raquel Leviss
The 10th season of “Vanderpump Rules,” which recently premiered, was showing a storyline of Leviss pursuing Tom Schwartz, Katie Maloney’s ex-husband and Sandoval’s good friend. However, the news of Sandoval and Leviss’ affair, which a source told People was rumored to have started more than six months ago, may have a big impact on the rest of the season’s edit.
In fact, Schroeder speculated on her podcast that Leviss’ pursuit of Schwartz may have been an idea planted by Sandoval to distract from their affair. “It sounds like something that Sandoval would have come up with,” Schroeder said. She added that he likely thought it would be a good way to “cover up” the affair.
Schroeder then explained that Maloney, who is one of her closest friends, told her while this was happening that Schwartz wasn’t interested in Leviss and Leviss wasn’t interested in him. Maloney told Schroeder that she thought they were both doing it for a storyline on the show and that’s what hurt her the most. In fact, Schroeder said Maloney told her that the hookup would have made more sense to her and been less hurtful if they were actually interested in each other.
Schroeder said now it “makes so much sense… [Leviss] didn’t give a f***. She was in love with Tom Sandoval and hooking up with him the whole entire time behind Ariana’s back.” That said, she clarified that she didn’t think Schwartz was aware of the affair.
The news that Schwartz and Leviss had made out in Mexico on the cast trip to Scheana Shay and Brock Davies’ wedding dominated the “Vanderpump Rules” news cycle in August 2022. In the months that followed and at BravoCon 2022, it became clear that lines were being drawn among the cast.
Stassi Schroeder Compared the Scandal to Her Own Storyline on VPR & Said This Affair Was a Lot Worse
Schroeder also confessed that she’d been concerned about speaking about “Vanderpump Rules” as she hadn’t discussed the show in a long time. As fans know, Schroeder was fired from the Bravo show in 2020 due to her past racially insensitive actions.
“I’ve been out of this situation and this environment for three years now,” Schroeder said on her podcast. “That’s a really long time, and I didn’t ask for that, that choice was made for me. I was removed from ‘Vanderpump Rules.’ And in order to cope and move on and be a healthy person I had to put some distance between myself and the show.”
She said it was strange and “triggering” to be back discussing that world but that the story was so massive that she felt she had to address it. She explained that she felt “worried” for Madix because she herself was very traumatized when she learned that one of her best friends, Kristen Doute, had slept with Schroeder’s ex-boyfriend Jax Taylor when he was trying to win her back.
As fans might recall, Doute was dating Sandoval at the time and staunchly denied sleeping with Taylor until she eventually confessed to having done so twice. Schroeder shared on her podcast that learning about the betrayal is what started her “dark passenger” and caused her to lash out at her now-husband Beau Clark and have issues trusting anyone. “How does [Madix] get over that?” Schroeder asked.
In fact, Schroeder clarified that the news of Sandoval’s affair with Leviss was “4 trillion times worse” than what Taylor and Doute did and the two don’t compare at all. “This feels completely worse,” she said emphatically.
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