Heavy/Getty/NBCUniversal Tom Sandoval is speaking out.
On April 11, 2023, Howie Mandel’s interview with Tom Sandoval on his “Howie Mandel Does Stuff” podcast went live. This marks the very first interview that Sandoval has done since his affair with “Vanderpump Rules” star Raquel Leviss was reported.
After talking a bit about his various business ventures, Sandoval and Mandel dove right in to what the world now knows as “Scandoval.”
Sandoval expressed a bit of surprise that the news surrounding his affair with Leviss was so publicized and couldn’t believe that it made national news. “I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life,” Sandoval said. “I’m not, like, royal family. I’m on a reality show,” he continued.
He went on to say that he’s “finally getting time to start to reflect on the situation,” which he “never dreamed” would ever happen to him.
Here’s what you need to know:
Tom Sandoval Says He Loves Ariana Madix
Sandoval and his longtime girlfriend Ariana Madix share a home together in California. The two have been together for nearly a decade after initially meeting and working together at Lisa Vanderpump’s SUR lounge.
On March 3, 2023, TMZ reported that Sandoval and Madix had broken up because Madix found out that Sandoval was having an affair with Leviss. Now, that information has been confirmed — but Sandoval says he still loves his ex.
“I can just tell you that, you know, Ariana and I have… you know, I love Ariana. I still love Ariana and I care about her, very much so. But we, for a while, have and had been sort of, like, just having our own lives,” he explained.
“Like many relationships, it felt like it became more of like best friends, family, sometimes roommates,” Sandoval said, adding that their relationship was “lacking intimacy.”
Later on in the interview, Sandoval said that he and Madix are “very different people.”
Tom Sandoval Says He ‘Accepted’ No Longer Having Sex With Ariana Madix
As their relationship went on, Sandoval said that there really wasn’t a romantic connection and admitted that the two weren’t having sex — which is something that he accepted. He said that he thought about Ken Todd and Lisa Vanderpump and realized that they “probably don’t have sex all the time” so he just felt “this is probably how it is.”
“It’s just one of the things that happens,” Sandoval explained of his lacking sex life. “I got porn. I got whatever, you know. I can just go crack one off in the bathroom and be done with it,” he added.
This isn’t the first time that Sandoval and Madix’s sex life has been brought up, either. Days after Scandoval broke, a source told The U.S. Sun that Sandoval and Madix “hadn’t been intimate in a while.”
“There came a point where they stopped having sex. Tom and Ariana’s relationship wasn’t perfect. They were having issues these past few months,” the source continued.
Tom Sandoval Says He Lost His ‘Optimism’ & ‘Drive’ When He Turned 40
It wasn’t until Sandoval turned 40 that he really started reflecting on his life.
“As I turned 40, I started to look at my life and it looked very bleak. I started to think my best years were behind me, and I started to lose my optimism in life. And my drive. I started coming to terms. I started to feel trapped,” he explained.
“I started to come to the realization… I started thinking like, ‘I don’t need this house. I don’t need this s***. But I feel like I need to make a change,'” he told Mandel.
Tom Sandoval Says He & Raquel Leviss Became ‘Really Good Friends’ Following Her Split From James Kennedy
Leviss was previously engaged to James Kennedy, but the two broke things off in December 2021.
“After these 5 wonderful years we had together, we decided we have two different goals and made the decision to call off the engagement. We love each other very much, but we aren’t in love anymore. We want nothing but the best for each other so please keep any thoughts positive. Sending Love,” Leviss captioned an Instagram pic of she and Kennedy, confirming their split.
In the weeks that followed, Sandoval and Leviss started getting closer and he says that they became “really, really good friends.’
“I was in a very dark place in my life,” Sandoval said of when he and Leviss got together for the first time. “I was in such a place just yearning for, like, a connection,” he said. They ended up “confiding in each other” and really built something strong.
As Sandoval started feeling all these negative feelings about himself and in his relationship with Madix, he admits that he “started pulling away.”
“These are not excuses as to what I did. What I did was completely wrong and totally f***** up,” he said.
Tom Sandoval Says He Encouraged Tom Schwartz to Go After Raquel Leviss
Sandoval explained that he really thought that his best friend Tom Schwartz should try to date Leviss because he felt that she was “f****** amazing.”
Sandoval says that he wasn’t pushing the two together so that he wouldn’t go after Leviss. At that time, he says, she wasn’t on his mind in a romantic way. He felt that if Leviss and Schwartz started dating they could “all hang out even more.”
Schwartz ended up kissing Leviss in Mexico while the two were there for Scheana Shay and Brock Davies’ wedding. Sandoval explained that he was mildly jealous of the hook up and confirmed that Schwartz did not know that he and Leviss had hooked up prior.
In April 2023, Schwartz told Andy Cohen that he doesn’t think that kissing Leviss was worth it.
“I never wanted to hurt Katie. The fallout I got, the blowback I got from that kiss, my God,” he said, according to People.
Tom Sandoval Says He & Raquel Leviss Kissed While Season 10 Was Filming (Before Scheana Shay’s Wedding)
While the timeline of Scandoval has been a bit unclear — the story the public has been given has the two dating since sometime in August — Sandoval says that he and Leviss ended up kissing one night during the time “Vanderpump Rules” was filming. Season 10 wrapped in July 2022.
“It was just magnetic,” he said. “I felt something that I hadn’t felt in so long. Like, emotionally,” Sandoval explained. He went on to confirm that he and Leviss did in fact hook up before Shay and Davis’ summer wedding.
Tom Sandoval Says That Ariana Madix Planned to ‘Quit the Show’ if They Broke Up
On March 7, 2023, TMZ shared a photo of Sandoval outside of a building where many therapists had offices, suggesting that he was getting help after the news broke.
In his interview with Mandel, Sandoval confirmed that he’s been seeing a therapist. He says that he “immediately” went to therapy after hooking up with Leviss because he wanted to figure out what he should do.
Sandoval said that he got Madix to go to therapy with him and the two did that for a while. Although he didn’t tell Madix about Leviss, he says that he tried to “plant the seed” that things needed to come to an end.
During their time in therapy, Sandoval said that he’d throw out “hypotheticals” and asked her what she would do if they broke up. He says that she said she’d quit “Vanderpump Rules” and wouldn’t continue moving forward with her “Something About Her” sandwich shop with pal Katie Maloney.
“My plan was actually to break up with her in therapy,” Sandoval explained. He went on to say that she did a “180” in the time they were in therapy. He did, however, break up with Madix on Valentine’s Day 2023, he says.
“There is never a right time. What is the right time to end a nine year relationship?” Sandoval wondered. He later said that splitting with Madix was a “monumental task.”
Sandoval claims that Madix “punched” him when he tried to break things off with her. He says that she later told him that she wasn’t “letting” him “leave” her. They did, however, split. “She knew we were broken up. We didn’t tell anybody, but she knew,” Sandoval explained.
At this point, Madix still didn’t know that Sandoval and Leviss were hooking up. It wasn’t until Madix picked up Sandoval’s dropped phone at one of his shows that she learned about his affair — this happened on March 1, 2023, and was reported on March 3, 2023.
Tom Sandoval & Ariana Madix Are Still Living Together & He’s on a ‘Break’ From Raquel Leviss
Sandoval and Madix are still living together in the home they own together, but they do plan to sell it.
Sandoval also confirmed that he and Leviss are “taking a break.”
“We’re really good friends. We’re not putting any label on it,” he said.
On “Watch What Happens Live,” Schwartz told Andy Cohen that Sandoval is “in love” with Leviss, according to TMZ.
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