Raquel ‘Ashamed’ of ‘Deceitful’ Affair with Sandoval

The “Vanderpump Rules” drama continued on part two of the season ten reunion. Wednesday’s episode let fans hear more from Raquel Leviss, who admitted to feeling “ashamed” about her affair with Tom Sandoval.

During her one-on-one with Andy Cohen, Raquel confessed that while Ariana Madix never came to her with suspicions prior to news of the scandal breaking, the affair with her best friend’s boyfriend was “very deceitful.”

“She never pressed about it. She never confronted me about it. From what I know — from what Tom told me — she didn’t question him too much about it. She just believed this at face value,” Raquel said to Andy, who told her it sounded like she was blaming Ariana.

“At the time, I think that was my mindset,” explained Raquel. “And now I know that she really did want to know, and it was very deceitful. I’m very ashamed of it.”

Recounting her first conversation with Ariana about the affair, Raquel described there being “a lot of pain from her [Ariana].” She went on to say the Florida native pressed her for details. “She begged me to tell her when it all happened and at this point, we wanted to tell her. We just wanted to get our stories straight because he felt it would hurt her if she knew how long this was going on.”

“So, by getting your story straight, you were going to maybe truncate how long it had been going on or something?” asked Andy.

“I told her the truth,” Raquel said. “And she said, ‘Thank you for telling me because Tom would have never told me the truth.'”

Raquel also shared with Andy how the friendship with her co-star became more than platonic. “Things started getting more romantic after this girl’s trip that I went on.”

When asked if Tom made her “feel special,” the former beauty pageant, said “He made me feel heard and seen. And those are feelings that I haven’t really felt maybe ever the way that he was seeing ever.”

The “Watch What Happens Live” host went on to ask if Raquel thought about “how this was going to play out with Ariana” and if she thought there was a path forward for the two of them.

“I think I was living in my own little reality hoping that it would work out,” Raquel told Andy.

Elsewhere in the episode, Tom caught up with Raquel during a filming break inside her trailer, where she had been watching the first part of the reunion play out due to the restraining order that required her to keep 100 yards away from castmate Scheana Shay.

“They’re making you and me to be basically pathological liars,” Tom told Raquel.

“We haven’t lied about anything besides this affair,” Raquel noted.

“I don’t love the way it is coming across about your guys’ intimacy,” she continued. “Clearly, I only know what you are telling me but just watching what you guys taped it sounds like you guys had a solid relationship,” Raquel said to Tom in response to Ariana’s comments about the state of their relationship prior to the scandal. “I feel like she felt like you wanted to keep the relationship going because you never broke up with her.”

Tom acknowledged this and defended himself by accusing Ariana of “talking down” to him, giving an example of Ariana telling him how he should not dress despite compliments from her on his sense of style.

Raquel told him how upsetting it was that this situation led her “entire character” to be questioned.  “I have gone through a transitional phase in my life this summer. And I think the pendulum swung a little bit too far the other way. And this is my wake-up call.”