Photo:Santiago Felipe/Getty, River Callaway/Variety via Getty
Santiago Felipe/Getty, River Callaway/Variety via Getty
Rachel “Raquel” Levissas found new “clarity” regarding her tumultuous relationship withTom Sandoval.
TheformerVanderpump Rulesstar shared some hard truths about how therapy has helped her reframe Sandoval’s behavior before, during and after theirworld-exploding months-long affair.
“The last five minutes of season 10, you see me break down because I want to come clean and I’m still holding things back because I don’t want to betray Tom because he is the one person I have left,” she said. “In my world, it seemed like he was the only person. He got me. He understood me. He was there for me in all of this time — or so I believed.”
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Soon after the reunion filming, Leviss entered a mental health treatment facility, where therapy brought some of her negative patterns with Sandoval into focus.
Nicole Weingart/Bravo
Looking back, Leviss also questions Sandoval’s intentions for fostering a closer, more intimate relationship with her when she was still processing herbroken engagementto costarJames Kennedy.
“He knew I was going through this heartbreak, and I’ve heard him say on his interviews ‘Oh, Raquel really was coming into her own.’ And that’s what attracted him to me,” she says. But now, “I’m like, ‘You a–hole. You could have just let me be. Like, let me live. Why can’t you cheer me on as a friend?'”
It’s part of an alleged pattern of “manipulative” behavior she now sees — one that she acknowledges also impacted Madix, 38.
“I think that Tom usesAriana’s mental healthagainst her, and it’s very manipulative and messed up,” Leviss said. “I think he could have gone about [our relationship and their breakup] in a much more mature way. But who knows if he’s even capable of that.”
Bryan Steffy/Bravo via Getty
The “biggest way” Leviss says Sandoval betrayed her, though, was“filming me without my consent.”This comment comes nearly one year after Madixfound an intimate videoon her then-boyfriend’s phone — one that Leviss has since said was screen-recorded without her knowledge. The discovery prompted Madix to immediatelyend their relationship.VPRcameras resumed filming, despite having concluded production for season 10 months before, and the rest isEmmy-nominatedhistory.
Now Leviss sums up, “I can see the impact the show had on my decisions, the impact that my trauma and my connection with Tom had on those decisions, and my trust in him and betraying myself in that process. I’ve been able to see a lot clearer now. That’s what I needed. I needed that space to gain that clarity.”
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Vanderpump Rulesseason 11 premieres Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo.
source: people.com
