UPDATE 8/17/23 4:00 p.m. ET
Bravo has denied Leviss’ claims, telling Us Weekly in a statement: “Tom Sandoval was never offered a producer credit on season 11, and had absolutely no creative control over any editing during any season of Vanderpump Rules.”
Original story:
Before Raquel Leviss seemingly decided not to return for season 11 of Vanderpump Rules, she spoke to Tom Sandoval about negotiating contracts in light of their bombshell affair.
“He’s not technically a producer. He’s been on the series from day one, season 1. … I don’t know if I’m even able to disclose this information, but he did tell me during negotiations for season 11 that he was offered a producer credit for season 11,” Leviss alleged during part 2 of her iHeartRadio podcast interview with Bethenny Frankel on Thursday, August 17.
Leviss now believes that Sandoval “was being rewarded for the scandal,” which she called “gross.”
“It makes me skeptical, like, was this really just something that was fabricated for this end result?” she pondered.
Leviss and Sandoval’s months-long affair was exposed in March when Ariana Madix — who had been dating Sandoval for nine years — discovered an NSFW video of Leviss on his phone.
“I felt very betrayed,” Leviss said of learning Sandoval recorded their private FaceTime session. “I felt like I couldn’t trust this person. I felt like my privacy didn’t matter to him, and he didn’t really give a good excuse besides he wanted me to see it, later on, to see how beautiful I was. But if he would’ve asked for permission, I would’ve said no.”
The content of the video wasn’t widely discussed on Vanderpump Rules. According to Leviss, Sandoval demanded a scene about the situation was cut from the season 10 finale.
“When Tom and I were filming at my apartment, after filming got picked back up, I said to Tom, ‘How can I trust you? You filmed me without my consent.’ And he admitted to it. But then after that scene wrapped, he said, ‘Why did you say that? Why did you say that on camera? You made me look bad,’” Leviss alleged. “And I was like, ‘Well, because that’s what happened.’ … He ended up boycotting filming the rest of Scandoval so that he could have editing rights to that scene to take out that specific [scene].”
When Frankel asked if Sandoval said, “I’m not filming unless you take that out,” Leviss said yes.
“I’ve seen that happen before,” the Real Housewives of New York City alum added.
Us Weekly has reached out to Bravo regarding Leviss’ claims about contract negotiations. Part 1 of her conversation with Frankel marked the first time that Leviss has spoken out since she checked into mental health treatment following the season 10 reunion.
“Part of the reason why I wanted to take some time away is just because it was so chaotic and loud and there was such vitriol online. But then the other part of the reason why I wanted to go to a treatment facility was to understand my behaviors,” Leviss said on Wednesday, August 16. “And my goal was to really get down to the bottom of, ‘OK, why am I choosing men that are unavailable? Why do I keep finding myself in unhealthy relationships? What are the things that I need to change about my behavior?’ And in knowing that I needed to make a change, I first had to know what it was that leads to those behaviors.”
