Credit: Todd Williams/Bravo, Kathy Hutchins/Shutterstock
Tom Sandoval treated his friend and business partner Tom Schwartz to a 41st birthday celebration on Monday.
As they filmed their Vanderpump Rules intros for the upcoming 11th season with the rest of their castmates, Sandoval, 40, surprised Schwartz with an “October-themed” cake as he prepared for the latest episode of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, which featured him reflecting on the fallout of “Scandoval.”
“It was a pretty juicy f*cking scandal,” Sandoval told his co-stars on the October 16 episode of Special Forces, via E! News. “If you would have opened up Instagram, you would have seen me and Ariana every day.”
After Sandoval was caught cheating on Ariana Madix, 38, his girlfriend of nine years, in March, with their close friend and co-star Raquel Leviss, 29, he was thrust into the spotlight in a way he hadn’t been before. And as details were shared about the months-long affair, he was met with massive amounts of hate mail on social media.
Of the criticism, Sandoval said he received “paragraphs of just like vicious, so visceral, like, hatred.”
Then, when speed skater Erin Jackson, 31, wanted to know what the “big deal” was, Sandoval admitted he was unsure why his and Raquel’s secret romance was so polarizing.
“I honestly don’t know. I’m a f*cking stupid reality star. Like, come on man,” he complained, seemingly addressing all the media coverage the story got.
In a confessional, Sandoval elaborated on the backlash, sharing that after his cheating was made public, viewers of Pump Rules began treating him completely differently.
“Before this whole scandal, I would meet people who had probably seen me on Vanderpump Rules, and they’d be like, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s so cool,’” he explained. “And then now, people think I’m a complete narcissist, creeper vibes.”
“I’m definitely not here to run away. I want to punish myself. I think I deserve it,” he continued of his decision to join Special Forces.
Meanwhile, on his Instagram Story, Sandoval shared a couple of clips on Monday of Schwartz’s birthday surprise.
“What’s up, everyone? I’m here with birthday boy, Tom Schwartz. Happy birthday, man. We’re shooting intros for season 11. It’s going down,” he teased in the first of two posts.
Then, in a second, Schwartz was seen being presented with an orange cake as his friends sang the “Happy Birthday” song to him.
“You guys are f*cking amazing. Thank you, so much,” Schwartz said after the song was finished.
Vanderpump Rules season 11 is expected to premiere on Bravo sometime later this year or early next year.
