We were just as shocked as Andy Cohen when Raquel Leviss admitted to blaming her affair with Tom Sandoval on his ex-girlfriend Ariana Madix (a.k.a the one he cheated on) during Part 2 of the Vanderpump Rules reunion.
At the end of Wednesday night’s (March 31) episode, Leviss opened up about the cheating scandal with her close friend’s boyfriend of nine years in a sit-down interview with Cohen separate from the rest of the cast.
Aside from revealing that she and Sandoval wanted to get their “stories straight” and were planning to lie about how long the affair was going on before Madix uncovered it herself, she also echoed Sandoval’s assumption that Madix didn’t want to know of their secret relationship since she didn’t question them on the red flags. You know, the boyfriend she trusted and the BFF she also trusted? Yeah, them.
“She never pressed about it. She never confronted me about it,” Leviss said. “From what I know — what Tom has told me — she didn’t question him too much about it. [She] just believed at face value what he would tell her.”
Cohen then pointed out that it sounded like Leviss was “blaming” Madix for the affair.
“I mean at the time I think that was my mindset,” she confessed. “Now I know that she really did want to know. And it was very deceitful. I’m very ashamed of it.”
Meanwhile, fans flocked to Twitter to drag Leviss for victim-blaming her former friend.
“Raquel admitting that her and Tom thought Ariana was to blame because she BELIEVED them about nothing going on,” one wrote. “You mean she actually trusted her best friend and partner of 9 years??”
Another fumed, “How fucking dare Raquel try to blame Ariana for the situation!!! It’s her fault because she believed my lies?!?!? Like what the actual fuck? It’s just like Sandoval saying ‘if she would have just followed me, she would have found out I was lying.'”
“Ariana didn’t press you, Raquel, about having an affair with Sandoval bc she never thought it could be true!” a third person added. “She trusted you both as two of the closest people in her life! But sure let’s blame Ariana!”
Someone else posted, “Not Raquel blaming Ariana for not pressing her and Tom more about their growing friendship. Sure let’s blame the victim.”
Vanderpump Rules airs on Wednesday nights at 9/8c on Bravo. New episodes are available to stream the next day on Peacock.