Raquel Leviss; Tom Sandoval Shutterstock(2)
And that’s a wrap … with an exclamation point. After weeks of teasing a “bombshell” set to drop on part 3 of the Vanderpump Rules reunion, fans learned new information about the timeline of Scandoval from Raquel Leviss on the Wednesday, June 7, conclusion of season 10.
“I think it’s important to me to tell the truth. I think that I’ve been lying and being so deceitful this entire time that I don’t want to lie anymore and it’s all out there anyway. Like, the worst is out, yet I’m still finding myself having to lie about specific timeline things,” Raquel, 28, told producers during her final interview of the season. “[Sandoval] feels like it would be less hurtful to say that, you know, this wasn’t going on for so long. [But] the second time was actually during Mexico [at Scheana Shay and Brock Davies’ August 2022 wedding].”
The former beauty queen revealed that the twosome were intimate after she found Sandoval, 40, “drunk and trying to find his room” in the hallway of the hotel and that the pair had sex “multiple times” while in Cancun.
Later in the interview, Raquel also shared that she initially suggested she, the TomTom cofounder and Ariana Madix become a throuple. “I love Ariana as a person and I’m in love with Tom Sandoval so it didn’t seem that far-fetched of that idea but it was not something in question,” she said, before adding, “He’s going to kill me, I just hate lying so much.”
Raquel explained that she was hesitant to be completely honest about her relationship with Sandoval because “he is my one person that I do have and if I just went and betrayed him then I’d really have nobody. Still, she further admitted that she has met his parents — and joined him on a trip to St. Louis behind 37-year-old Madix’s back.
The reunion was filmed in March, weeks after Ariana learned that Raquel had an affair with Sandoval. The twosome previously claimed that they slept together for the first time in August 2022 and hooked up throughout the fall, with things escalating in December 2022 as Sandoval brought Raquel to his hometown of St. Louis.
Before wrapping up, the California native broke down into tears while sharing why, exactly, Sandoval wanted to lie about the timeline of their affair.
“This is the one story that we’ve agreed on getting straight. And I know the reason why Tom wanted to lie about it is that it’s a really bad look to hook up with someone’s boyfriend in their own house when they’ve gone out of town. Especially for like a funeral of all things,” she said while breaking down in tears, referring to Madix going out of town to mourn her late grandmother. “So, like, I don’t know if this is f—king killed my soul. I am so sick of lying, I hate it. I hate being deceitful. It’s horrible.”
The revelation led to the end of Ariana, 37, and Sandoval’s nine-year relationship and prompted Bravo to pick the cameras back up to film a bonus episode amid the fallout.
Executive producer Alex Baskin previously teased that part 3 of the reunion left the crew’s “heads spinning,” denying speculation that the reveal was Raquel being pregnant.
“What made this reunion different than any other was that we, as a production, had no idea what was going to happen,” Baskin noted. “Usually we have some sense. There’s great anticipation for Raquel to come out [in part 3]. I will say that whatever anyone thinks of what she did this past season, it was brave of her to face the music, knowing everyone is at full tilt.”
Raquel’s former fiancé, James Kennedy, teased on Tuesday, June 6, that the cast — which also includes Tom Schwartz, Katie Maloney, Lala Kent and Lisa Vanderpump — won’t be happy about the bombshell.
“If you were thinking that you were over it or you were ready to forgive anyone, just watch tomorrow and you are going to get shot right back to square one,” he said via Instagram Stories.
While Wednesday’s episode concluded season 10, cameras are set to start capturing season 11 “in the next few weeks.”
“The truth is, we’re on our typical production timeline,” Baskin told THR. “We’re just not on an accelerated timeline. There was some thought that we would head right into the next season after the reunion, and then it became clear to us that we needed to slow down a minute. So that’s what we did. We’re making preparations for the next season, but we didn’t just go continuously from the reunion into the next season.”
In addition to teasing the return of former stars, the producer noted that conversations about Raquel’s future are “ongoing” after she checked into mental health treatment amid the backlash.
“We’re supposed to speak to her as well soon,” he said. “And, we’re going to see. We want to make sure she is in a place where it makes sense for her to tell her story in a public setting. We think it’s interesting to see what is going on with her life right now and what she plans to do from here, but our first order of business is making sure that it makes sense for her to be on television.”
