March 3rd, 2023 will go down in history in the Bravo-sphere. It will be discussed for years to come; we will reminisce about where you were when you heard the news. It will be mentioned in the same breath as Jen Shah’s arrest, the Countess’ DUI, the Giudice’s being found guilty and so many others in Bravo history.
Tom Sandoval and Ariana were always a little mismatched in my opinion so the news of their breakup on it’s own wouldn’t have been so shocking. If it was revealed that the reason they broke up was because of cheating I still wouldn’t have been surprised. Tom is a cheater, through and through.
There were girls in Vegas, Miami Girl, and Ariana herself.
Cheating is not the scandal here.
Who he cheated with is.
Raquel popped up on the scene as James Kennedy’s girlfriend and I think we were all less than impressed with her. She offered nothing but a shaky voice and a pageant smile.
I wasn’t surprised when her and James broke up either, but always figured that she deserved more. Most women deserve more than James Kennedy.
When Raquel started messing around with Schwartz, Peter, and Oliver, Garcelle’s married son, that’s when I started questioning her judgement. Are there no other men in WeHo?
However, now I’m fully convinced she is a sociopath.
How does one woman talk about another as their best friend, discuss in interviews how good Ariana has been to her and how much she trusts her, and then all the meanwhile, she is screwing her boyfriend of almost a decade behind her back?
Raquel and Tom were sleeping together in Ariana’s home, while she was there! That is sick and you have to be really dumb and delusional to do that. You have to be heartless to look someone in the face the next morning knowing you slept with her boyfriend right under her nose.
Tom is no saint. He’s been a cheater since day one but having an affair with a co-star, one who your girlfriend considered a friend is sickening. It’s all so shocking and twisted. The more we learn, the sicker I feel.
All of those tidbits make it a different VPR scandal than we’ve been subjected to; Tom and Ariana are in their late 30s/early 40s, they’ve been together for a while, they bought a house together, they’ve been committed to each other as much as you could without being married… you would think they had moved past this made for tv messiness but apparently not.
When Kristen and Jax cheated, it was a one time drunken hookup. Tom and Kristen had been cheating on each other for years, Jax is Jax, and him and Stassi weren’t together then. We’ve never had an affair (aside from Lala and Scheana, who were in the dark about their men’s relationship status) between two cast members.
It’s the bread and butter of what Vanderpump Rules was built on — the backdoor pilot was based around Scheana sleeping with Eddie Cibrian, but this is so much worse. No longer can you blame it on alcohol, bad timing, being young and stupid - or just being Jax… this was intentional. This was deliberate. Tom and Raquel played Ariana, they played their friends and they played us.
We’ve watched for 10 years as these toxic people get wrapped up in each other’s mess but an affair of this magnitude was never in the cards.
There have been very few times where Bravo picks up cameras outside of their filming time. The finale was supposedly filmed in November so it’s been a while since things were happening in Valley Village. That’s how you know it’s a different beast.
It feels like every hour something new is released, we get another reaction, another paparazzi photo but I simply cannot wait until we get full word of how this all went down.
What I’m most interested to find out is why and how this started. Who made the first move? When did feelings develop? Why didn’t Tom just break up with Ariana?
There are so many unanswered questions and if there is one thing that VPR delivers is answers. We never have to wonder with this group - they lay it all out on the table and no stone goes unturned. It’s remarkable what reality television does to people, how raw and vulnerable it makes them. How greedy it makes them, for fame for notoriety, for money. It forms them into such a different being that they are willing to break up with their cheating partner on camera.
I’m not knocking them, I applaud them for their dedication to the craft. It’s fun to watch, thrilling to follow and I enjoy every moment of it.
There are few other mediums that could get the likes of Oscar award winners like Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence riled up. What else is Chrissy Teigen tweeting about like a fangirl? Bravo brings out the fun in people, the fascination with real people showing their real lives for pure entertainment.
I think that’s another topic for another day…