On Vanderpump Rules‘ Season 11, Tom Sandoval revealed that he’s “still very much in love” with Rachel Leviss. As their affair ended his longstanding relationship with Ariana Madix, we’d hope that love was involved. Otherwise, these two just blew up so their lives for nothing. That said, we kinda think that Tom just claimed to be in “love” to avoid receiving additional flack.
On her podcast, Rachel compared Tom’s “love-bombing” to a cult leader in a recruitment phase. “Gradually, over time, it becomes a control tactic. It’s almost like that phrase ‘a frog in boiling water’ where it won’t jump out of boiling water even though it’s going to kill them because it’s so gradual,” she explained.
To be clear, Rachel doesn’t think that Tom loved her, like, ever. In fact, Rachel’s labeling Tom’s true intentions as “coercive control,” as Tom made himself appear as “the most important person” in her life while they were filming for VPR Season 10. If you ask us, Tom loved having this extra attention from a female, but he didn’t actually love Rachel. Here’s why.
Tom Didn’t Break up With Ariana for Rachel
Tom and Ariana dated for nine long years. In this time, we watched them weather all of life’s storms together. They always presented as a united front, until Season 10. Here, Ariana finally began calling out Tom’s treatment of the ladies on the cast. Insert James Kennedy hysterically asking “We’re not doing that today?” right after Ariana asked Tom to not insert himself into the females conversations.
Together, Tom and Ariana released a cocktail book, using the following that they had amassed from their bartending, love-ridden brand. Truly, for such a long period of time, they were the only stable couple on this Bravo series, and their brand relied heavily on this matter. Even still, Tom cheated. We have no words, except, ugh.
After their affair was brought to light, Rachel shared that Tom had been making plans to leave Ariana. These plans, however, never came to fruition. Instead, Tom blamed everything from Ariana’s mental health, to not wanting to destroy their brand, all in order to have his cake and eat it (gross) too. If Tom truly loved Rachel, he would have left Ariana, but as he didn’t, we are calling foul on his love declaration.
Tom Said Horrible Things About Rachel
Everybody Loves Tom is a podcast to never hit subscribe on. Trust us. It’s filled with deflection and changed narratives and it’s ick. Making matters even worse, Tom brought on Tamra Judge and Teddi Mellencamp, after they had him on theirs first, and both were such cringe-inducing podcasts, we feel bad even mentioning them, but we will, because words matter.
Basically, while Rachel was off of the grid receiving mental health counseling, Tom began passing the blame. When he needed to own his part as a taken-man, looking for a little side-piece connection, he instead said nah, it wasn’t me. Now, he’s playing the victim, claiming that Rachel took advantage of him while he was weak. Again, ugh.
“She came into her own. And she got this confidence and, like, she went too far. And got herself in a position. But she did that herself. She didn’t have to come on to a guy in a relationship like she did. She came onto a guy in a relationship that was severely, you know — like, I was depressed. I had no confidence. So low self-value,” he bemoaned, while the audiences hopefully rolled their collective eyes.
Prior to this, the “in love” cover band singer went on a tour, where he literally changed the lyrics to say “Rachel is not for me.” Even though he sometimes switched it up to get a thrill out of the audience, his changing of the word “not” to “hot” was still gross. Even worse, Tom illegally filmed Rachel naked via a very intimate video that she had sent to him. NONE of these moves point to a man in love, unless we are talking about this man’s love of self.
Tom Belittled Rachel’s Mental Health Counseling
On Episode 6 of Rachel’s podcast, Rachel shared that Tom’s true colors were finally revealed to her while she was receiving care at The Meadows. “If I didn’t reach out to him one day or two days, he would be upset by it and really kind of take out his frustration on me,” she shared. This doesn’t sound like a man in love to us. In addition, she also said that Tom’s actions made her “feel like I had a responsibility to maintain his emotional needs.”
But wait, because it gets worse. “And, oh man, the amount of times that Tom called me ‘selfish’ while I was in The Meadows and [said I was] ‘running away from my problems’ and I’m ‘depending on this place that’s basically an assisted living facility’ — you know, like really guilt-tripping me and saying that I left him to deal with all the fodder, I’m just running,” she claimed.
“You know, that just reveals the type of person he is and … there’s no question that Tom and I will never, ever be friends again,” Rachel revealed, ending her truth-spilling podcast note with a subtle dig at her ex fling. For all of these actions on his end, it’s pretty clear that what Tom was feeling for Rachel was never love. It was only lust.
TELL US – DO YOU THINK THAT TOM WAS EVER IN LOVE WITH RACHEL?
