Rachel Leviss Runs Down Tom Sandoval’s Many Betrayals and Names the ‘Biggest Way’ He Crossed Her Mid-Affair

Rachel “Raquel” Leviss as found new “clarity” about her tumultuous relationship with Tom Sandoval.

Former Vanderpump Rules star shared some hard truths about how therapy helped her reshape Sandoval’s behavior before, during and after their months-long affair that exploded into the world.

The 29-year-old former pageant queen answered fans’ questions in an episode about herself on Friday Rachel goes rogue podcast, specifically addressing claims that she was largely “emotionless” during the Season 10 reunion. According to Leviss, Sandoval, 41, coached her on “keeping the story” he designed to soften the effects of their secret relationship, which ended his nine-year relationship with her co-star and friend Ariana Madix.

Still, during the one-on-one interview aired at the end of the interview, Leviss let some of her conflicted emotions show — a vulnerability she worried Sandoval would take as a betrayal.

“The last five minutes of Season 10, you see me breaking down because I want to come clean and I’m still holding things back because I don’t want to betray Tom because he’s the only person I have left,” she said. .. “In my world, it seemed like he was the only person. He had me. He understood me. He was there for me all this time – or so I believed.”

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Shortly after filming the reunion, Leviss checked into a mental health facility, where therapy brought some of her negative patterns with Sandoval into focus.

She recalls telling her therapist that she “betrayed Tom by telling this truth,” adding, “And my therapist was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa — but didn’t Tom betray you first?'”

Over time, she realized that Sandoval “asked me to lie when he knew I wasn’t a good liar, and I told him I didn’t like to lie. It put me in a very bad position with my friendships and this placement in this international reality TV show [meant] that my reputation was at stake”.

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Nicole Weingart/Bravo

In retrospect, Leviss also questions Sandoval’s intentions in fostering a closer, more intimate relationship with her while she was still dealing with her broken engagement to co-star James Kennedy.

“He knew I was going through heartbreak and I heard him say in his interviews ‘Oh, Raquel really came into her own.’ And that’s what attracted him to me,” she says. But now, “I’m like, ‘You—hole. You could have just left me alone. Like, let me live. Why can’t you cheer me on like a friend?'”

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It’s part of an alleged pattern of “manipulative” behavior she’s now seeing – one she admits also affected Madix, 38.

“I think Tom is using Ariana’s mental health against her, and it’s very manipulative and messed up,” Leviss said. “I think he could have gone around [our relationship and their breakup] in a much more mature way. But who knows if he is even capable of it.”

Bryan Steffy/Bravo via Getty

Still, the “biggest way” Leviss says Sandoval betrayed her was “filming me without my consent.” The comment comes almost a year after Madix found an intimate video on her then-boyfriend’s phone – one that Leviss has since said was taken without her knowledge. This revelation prompted Madix to immediately end their relationship. VPR cameras continued to roll, despite the season ending production 10 months prior, and the rest is Emmy nomination history.

Now Leviss summarizes: “I see the impact the show had on my decisions, the impact my trauma and my connection to Tom had on those decisions, my trust in him and the betrayal of myself in the process. Now I saw a lot more clearly. That’s what I needed. I needed that space to get that clarity.”

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Vanderpump Rules season 11 premieres Tuesday at 8:00 PM ET on Bravo.

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Source: HIS Education