Many entangled in the Vanderpump Rules/Scandoval web are returning to reality TV beyond the next season of Bravo’s juggernaut. Ariana Madix is headed to Dancing With the Stars with a bevy of endorsement deals in tow; Tom Sandoval will compete on Special Forces; and Tom Schwartz, having already completed a stint on Stars on Mars, has reportedly been spotted filming next season of Bravo’s Winter House.
But Rachel Leviss, the woman who engaged in the monthslong affair with Sandoval that reinvigorated Vanderpump, is taking the redemption road less traveled. She’s apparently going beyond simply quitting Vanderpump Rules: Leviss said she’s severing ties with Bravo altogether.
She broke the news while appearing on Bethenny Frankel’s Just B podcast, where she discussed Frankel’s fight to unionize reality-TV stars. Leviss claimed that Bravo exploited her: “The network is running to the bank—like laughing, running to the bank with this scandal, and I haven’t seen a single penny,” she said on Wednesday’s episode, apparently the first part of a multi-part interview she did with Frankel. “I feel like it’s not fair. And I feel like a toddler saying ‘it’s not fair,’ but it really isn’t.”
She continued: “I feel like I’ve been portrayed as the ultimate villain. My mistakes that I’ve made on camera live on forever. And you mentioned something about the addiction of doing reality TV, and the way that they always dangle that carrot in front of you, like, ‘Well, you need to tell your side of the story, otherwise it’s gonna be written for you.’ And that’s terrifying. So I almost went back just because of that.”
Though Frankel said she didn’t watch Vanderpump until after the scandal broke, her podcast gave Leviss an opportunity to take some accountability for her actions—something that was missing from this season’s much-hyped Vanderpump reunion episodes. “The concept of an affair hits home, hits really hard to a lot of people,” Leviss told Frankel. “So I think there was a lot of projection happening, a lot of emotions that came up for people. And unfortunately, I was the punching bag for a lot of that…. Looking back now, I can see that I was still healing from a relationship, from somebody who I thought I was going to marry,” she continued, referencing her broken engagement to fellow Vanderpump castmate James Kennedy. “And in ending that, I still haven’t healed yet.”
Though Vanderpump made it seem like she and Madix were “best friends,” Leviss said that they never spent time together off-camera—and that Madix and Sandoval’s nearly decade-long relationship had devolved into a mere business partnership by the time the affair began. “I would not be involved in this affair, secrecy type of situation if I thought that there was longevity in this relationship between Tom and Ariana,” Leviss said. “The people closest to them could see that their relationship hasn’t been what they portray on camera. And Tom always told me, like, they’re a brand, they’re an image.”
Leviss also suggested that some of her actions were, at least in part, influenced by money. When signing on for the 10th season of Vanderpump, she told Frankel, “one of the things that producers also told me is that you get paid based off of your performance from the season prior. So that already set me up to want to perform well going into Season 10…. And I took direction well.” At one point Frankel said, “It’s my understanding that you get paid in a year less than my interns get paid.” But sources with knowledge of the situation told TMZ that Leviss received more than $350,000, or almost $20,000 per episode, for her work on Vanderpump last season. (Vanity Fair has reached out to Bravo for comment.)
Leviss, who changed her name to Raquel in the first grade because “there were a few other Rachels in my class and I wanted to be special,” has since reverted to her given moniker. “I feel like most of my life, I’ve been afraid. I’ve struggled with social anxiety; I’ve struggled with judgment for other people. So having a fear of vulnerability makes sense,” Leviss told Frankel. “So I’m really just trying to come back to my roots, and I’m introducing myself as Rachel.”