Tom Sandoval’s Fallout: Ariana Madix Calls The Wake of ‘Scandoval’ ‘Incredible’
Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval famously cheated on Ariana Madix with her best friend Raquel Leviss, and she’s calling the
Ellie Mason
Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval famously cheated on Ariana Madix with her best friend Raquel Leviss, and she’s calling the wake of Scandoval “incredible.” It’s not a word most people would expect to hear about being cheated on. But Madix has managed to take a painful experience and turn it into an opportunity. The Vanderpump Rules star recently sat down with UsWeekly to talk about her experience with Scandoval, and Dancing with the Stars.
Tom Looks For Pity After Scandoval Fallout
TOM SANDOVAL arrives at the 2023 iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo credit: ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA
Tom Sandoval recently shared his own experience with the affair. In an episode of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, Sandoval told his trainers that he was having a hard time. The tearful TomTom owner shared, “I’ve had a hell of a, like, three months.” Special Forces staff then asked why he was having a hard time, to which Sandoval replied that he had had an affair.
He told the trainers, “She’s also on [Vanderpump Rules]. It was just the perfect storm, like, my publicist had never seen anything like it. ‘A f—king reality star having an affair’ [was] on CNN? It’s so stupid.” He added emotionally, “It became this ‘Team Ariana’ thing. They sold $200,000 in merch in, like, two weeks.” Sandoval then recalled how it felt for friends to pick sides; “Seeing people I’ve been friends with for well over a decade just turn on me, it was just so exhausting.”But Sandoval’s DS trainers on Special Forces didn’t have a lot of sympathy for the VPR star.
They said it was “pathetic” to see Sandoval “play [the] victim” when he isn’t one. Mark “Billy” Billingham summarized, “The first thing you should be doing is owning it.”
Ariana Madix Calls Wake of Scandoval ‘Incredible’
Ariana Madix shows off her fit body while striking a pose in tall grass during a photo shoot on a Hollywood Hills hiking trail in L.A. on Thursday. Madix was on a fashion shoot in the mountains overlooking the San Fernando Valley. She was picked up in a limo from the house she shares with Tom Sandoval with a stylist and camera crew in tow. 25 May 2023 Photo credit: GARRETT PRESS / MEGA
Ariana Madix, by contrast, is thriving. Madix told Us Weekly that Scandoval “made me realize that I can do hard things. The worst-case scenario literally did happen, and I was OK. Like, look — you can handle what’s thrown at you.”
And Madix is enjoying the way the fans have rallied behind her. She told the outlet, “It’s incredible. Sometimes I’ll go to the mall and meet someone who’s been through a similar situation. And then we’ll talk in the middle of Sephora and cry and hug each other.”
Madix is now competing on Dancing with the Stars, and she called it “the best time.” It’s hard on the body, Madix explained, but she is enjoying it. However, in order to get to a better place after being cheated on by Sandoval, “Therapy helped 100 percent. Some of the work I was doing in therapy right before all of this set me up to be in a much better position. It could’ve been so much worse.”
Dancing with the Stars airs on ABC every Tuesday night at 8 PM EST. Vanderpump Rules airs on the Bravo app or through Peacock.