Ariana Said It Was Hard Not to Love Raquel Before Sandoval Cheating Scandal

In her corner? Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix appeared to be on the same page when it came to their friendship with Raquel Leviss before Scandoval made headlines.

During a scene from Vanderpump Rules Secrets Revealed, which aired on Wednesday, June 14, Sandoval, 40, and Ariana, 37, enjoyed a date at a roller rink. “You look so f—king hot today,” the TomTom co-owner gushed over his then-girlfriend. “It is a lovely dance of hot and cute that you do.”

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Ariana, for her part, said she was excited about getting to spend more time with the bartender, whom she began dating in 2013. “I think Tom and I have the kind of bond where we started out as friends and that friendship bond is something that will help us come back and rebuild those fun romantic times now that we hopefully have more time together,” she said in a confessional. “But I think that those sacrifices — even though they are hard — they are worth it. I want him to succeed when it comes to opening the bar, but I also miss being able to just really be together.”

After the pair skated around together, they changed the topic to Raquel, 28. Both Sandoval and Ariana praised the model amid her ups and downs with their fellow Vanderpump Rules cast members.

“I said to Katie [Maloney], I was like, ‘You know, you’re going to have to work really hard to get me to not just absolutely love Raquel,’” the Something About Her co-founder recalled in the scene, which was filmed in August 2022. “I love her so much, and we’ve spent so much time together on trips and we really have this really beautiful little friendship family.”

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Ariana continued: “And them saying stuff like, ‘I wouldn’t trust Raquel around my man.’ I’m like, ‘We’ve all stayed in houses together. It sucks that maybe you guys don’t have that friendship family that we’ve had the past few years with each other.’”

In response, Sandoval pointed out that he and Ariana have a “transparent love” between them and their friends.

The previously unseen conversation between the duo took place shortly after Sandoval hooked up with Raquel off screen. In March, Us Weekly confirmed that the Missouri native split from Ariana after nearly a decade of dating due to his affair with the former beauty pageant queen.

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After Sandoval and Raquel issued separate public apologies to Ariana, the entire cast addressed the scandal and its aftermath at the bombshell reunion. The Florida native later recalled being shocked by Sandoval and Raquel’s deception.

“To be very clear, I didn’t lose him,” she said on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast in May. “He lost me. But I think that I trusted in him so much … that I trusted his perspective on things.”

She added: “I feel like we would have so many amazing times together, so then if there was a couple weeks that were not great or if I was, like, unsure about something [in the relationship], there was so much other stuff that was great. … It was almost, I think, hard to say, ‘Oh, this person’s not right for me,’ because I also had never been in a relationship that long before.”

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At the time, Ariana admitted she might have “turned a blind eye” to red flags between Sandoval and Raquel. “But I think I was given a lot of assistance in doing that because I would bring things up and I would be shot down,” she explained. “I was very much committed and I feel like I was doing my absolute best as a partner. But I don’t think I would do anything differently, just because I feel like all I can do is my best — and whether my best was good enough or not for anyone, that’s what it was.”

The Fancy AF Cocktails coauthor has since made it clear where she stands with her ex-boyfriend and former friend. “I have nothing to say to either of them,” Ariana told The New York Times in May when asked whether she was “open to filming with” Sandoval and Raquel for season 11, which has not yet started production. “Our show is very real and follows a real group of friends, and neither of them are in the group of friends, so, good luck.”

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