Raquel Leviss revealed what Tom Sandoval told her in their private convo at the Vanderpump Rules reunion. She also claimed her kiss with Tom Schwartz was “staged” – with Sandoval’s blessing.
When Schwartz kissed Raquel, she was deep into her affair with his best friend Sandoval. Fans now suspect it was used as a cover. Raquel recently shared that Schwartz knew about the affair from the beginning.
On her Rachel Goes Rogue podcast, she addressed Sandoval’s anger at Schwartz, who changed his story about when he learned of the affair. This suggested that Raquel and Schwartz’s kiss wasn’t sincere.
“We’re partially acting on this show and the main goal is to not break that fourth wall, and Sandoval I think wanted to maintain that,” explained Raquel, via Us Weekly. “He was not happy with Schwartz when he said at the reunion that he found out in August [2022].”
She said Tom, before returning to the reunion stage, wanted to solidify his timeline with Raquel.
“That was part of the conversation that we had when he pulled [me] aside out of the trailer. And the cameras went down,” she said. “He was like, ‘It’s not cool that Schwartz came clean with his answer,’ or he didn’t come fully clean, but he definitely didn’t stick to the date Sandoval wanted him to.”
“I think he was reinforcing that I would stick to the story to keep me in his grasp, so I wouldn’t go rogue and expose it all. So it was definitely a control tactic and it seemed to have worked for the time being,” she added.
Raquel claimed parts of the show are insincere.
“It is very strange how the fans’ comments will influence our story line and how we go about filming. I guess it is part of the producers’ jobs to know what the fans want to see and what they are asking for. A lot of cast members will self-produce and will be thinking about what story line they’re going to be involved in as the season comes up,” she said. “The comments that the fans will put out there seems to influence [what happens]. If there’s a little seed of, ‘So and so should date so and so.’ It seems to come into fruition.”
She felt her Mexico kiss with Schwartz was “rewarded” when a future episode centered on her birthday trip.
“I was like, ‘That’s what I’ve been wanting. That’s what I asked for.’ So immediately I was rewarded and we were all celebrating,” said the star. “It just felt like this high. Like I did something right. So no, it wasn’t initially a cover to cover up my relationship with Sandoval. It turned into that when we kept the secret and still played into this flirty role that Schwartz and I had. I question whether or not Sandoval strategized that move so that it could be a cover. But I do know that Schwartz was fully aware of the situation.”
Raquel also claimed she shot her shot with Schwartz as “part of our inside joke” because viewers believed they’d already kissed at Coachella.
“A little seed [was] planted in my head that, oh, like, that could be a fun storyline for season 10 and because we’re both single, and so when I made that move, he turned it down, and I was like, ‘Okay, that’s that.’ Like, I’m not going to try again because it was stupid to begin with it and he clearly wasn’t into it,” said Raquel, via PEOPLE.
After the kiss, Raquel said his ex Katie Maloney “set a boundary [on the Vegas girls trip], saying if you do anything with Schwartz, I’m not going to be able to have a friendship with you.”
But after telling Katie that she would respect this, a producer allegedly reminded Raquel that they’re “making a reality TV show.” Schwartz later kissed Raquel on the trip to Mexico.
“I have a feeling that either producers got into Schwartz’s ear saying, ‘Oh, you should make out with Raquel.’ He got some pressure somewhere to make out with me and put a move on me,” she explained.
Raquel said it was “definitely staged and definitely produced,” and she suspected Schwartz got the “go ahead with Sandoval to kiss me because I don’t think he would do it without Sandoval being okay with it.”
“Both of us [knew] that I had a thing with Sandoval,” she explained of the kiss. The star claimed Sandoval “army crawl[ed]” to them afterward and gave them two beers. According to Raquel, Sandoval “was in on it and definitely okay with it.”
