Rachel Leviss Admits Tom Schwartz Kiss Was ‘Staged’ and Confirms He Knew About the Affair ‘Since the Very Beginning’

Rachel “Raquel” Leviss reveals the behind-the-scenes story of her kiss with Tom Schwartz amid her affair with his best friend Tom Sandoval.

In the latest episode of her new iHeartRadio podcast Rachel goes roguethe Vanderpump Rules alum, 29, shared that she decided to make a move on Schwartz, 41, as “part of our inside joke” because fans were convinced they kissed at Coachella.

After the rumors started, she admitted “a little seed [was] He put it in my head that, oh, like, it could be a fun story for season 10 and because we’re both single, so when I made the 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 and he obviously didn’t like it.”

Tom Sandoval, Tom Schwartz and Rachel “Raquel” Leviss.

Nicole Weingart/Bravo

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After the kiss, Leviss said Schwartz’s ex-wife Katie Maloney “set a boundary, saying if you do anything with Schwartz, I can’t have a friendship with you” on the bachelorette trip to Las Vegas, which was documented on Season 10 of the Bravo series.

The next day, she filmed with Scheana Shay and told her that she would respect Katie’s boundaries and not kiss Schwartz, but claimed that the show’s producers reminded her that they were “filming a reality TV show.”

Schwartz, in fact, initiated their next kiss during the wedding of their co-stars Shay and Brock Davies, which was also seen in the last season VPR. She explained, “I feel like the producers got into Schwartz’s ear saying, ‘Oh, you should be kissing Raquel.’ Somewhere he was under pressure to cuddle with me and get me going.”

Tom Schwartz and Rachel “Raquel” Leviss. Arturo Holmes/WireImage; Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Tom Schwartz is no longer ‘ashamed’ of having guests in his bachelor pad after divorce: ‘Major rebrand’ (Exclusive)

She recalled that the moment between them was “definitely staged and definitely produced.” She added that she felt Schwartz had “go ahead with Sandoval to kiss me because I don’t think he would have done it without Sandoval going along with it.”

Leviss said they kissed “both knowing I had something with Sandoval.” After the kiss, she recalled that Sandoval “crawled” up to them and then opened two beers for them. She added that she knows Sandoval “was in on it and definitely agrees with it.”

Elsewhere in the podcast, Leviss admitted that Schwartz knew about the affair between her and Sandoval “from the very beginning.” She explained: “I got a phone call from Tom the morning after we first got together and my mind was racing. I felt so guilty and ashamed about it. And finally I got a phone call from Sandoval and he was at Schwartz’s apartment when he called me, and that was a safe place for him.”

Tom Schwartz and Tom Sandoval on The Bravos November 3, 2023

Ralph Bavaro/Bravo via Getty

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“And so Schwartz knew before we even talked about it and what the game plan was going to be, because I was immediately going to shoot with [Sandoval’s ex-girlfriend] Ariana [Madix] and our girl group that night,” she added.

During the call, she asked if he would tell Madix and claimed he replied, “No, we won’t.”

After their first relationship, Leviss went on a bachelorette party with Madix, and Sandoval sent a bottle of champagne to their table. She called it “this twisted way of celebrating and then reassuring me that, oh, this is all fine, like this is something to be excited about.”

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Vanderpump Rules returns to Bravo on January 30, and seasons 1-10 can be watched in their entirety on the Peacock.

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Source: HIS Education