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Though they have since broken up, Tom Sandoval and Raquel Leviss professed their love to each other during Wednesday’s explosive “Vanderpump Rules” Season 10 finale episode.
Days after the co-stars’ months-long affair made headlines, cameras picked back up to capture the fallout, which included Sandoval stopping by Leviss’ apartment.
She greeted him with a shot, and the two toasted to “being in hell.”
“Where we belong,” Sandoval said from his seat on her kitchen counter, but Leviss, who was standing, argued, “I don’t actually think we belong in hell. I think we’re just two people that f–cking were friends and started having feelings for each other.”
Sandoval said their romance “came out of f–king left field” and then accidentally called Leviss by the name of his long-term girlfriend, Ariana Madix, on whom he had been cheating.
After Leviss pointed out the awkward slip, she told Sandoval she “had to tell [her] family” about him.”
“Your mom f–king hates me,” he said, prompting Leviss to admit, “A little bit.”
“What about your family?” she began to ask, as Sandoval flashed an uncomfortable grin. “Or do you not want to talk about … we don’t have to talk about it,” she said.
Leviss then put her hands up to her face, which prompted Sandoval to say, “They love you.” However, Leviss heard, “I love you,” and reciprocated with, “I love you, too.”
“I said they love you,” he explained with a smile. “But I love you, too.”
He then grabbed and rubbed her face affectionally, as she told him, “I know we always said we wouldn’t f–king do this if we didn’t think it was worth it.”
Despite her gleeful facial expression, she noted that the way the situation “imploded” was “not ideal at all.”
“I know, I know,” Sandoval whispered back as he pressed his forehead against hers, calling the ordeal “the stupidest thing.”
He then brought her in for a hug and said, “I can’t kiss you; there’s cameras. I can’t do that.”
Still smiling, Leviss replied, “I can’t either. I can’t either. It’s so weird.”
In a later confessional, a producer asked her, “Why do you think this happened?”
Leviss replied, “I was just so curious to know what it would be like to be physical with someone that you love ’cause I already knew that I loved him as a friend, and I’ve never had sex like that before.”
“I should’ve, like, completely removed myself from the situation,” she added, “but I did not have the willpower to not see him.”
Back at Leviss’ apartment, she and Sandoval moved to her couch, where he pointed out the small mark above her left eyebrow and claimed Scheana Shay boasted to him, “I punched that bitch.”
“Yeah, she definitely did,” said Leviss, who filed for — and later dropped — a restraining order request against Shay. (Earlier in the episode, Shay admitted to shoving Leviss upon learning of the affair but insisted she never punched her.)
“I took it like a champ,” Leviss told Sandoval. “And then I’m like, is this my karma? And it scares me. I feel so isolated.”
As Leviss began to cry, Sandoval leaned in to hug her. “I honestly feel like I only have you, my parents and my sister to have, like, my best interest at heart,” she said.
“And even with you, it’s questionable,” she went on. “It’s like, am I really going to put my life on the line for someone that would cheat on someone that they love so much? Because then that makes me think that you would be capable of doing that to me. And I don’t wanna get caught up in this whirlwind of a romance where I’m, like, blind to these things.”
But Sandoval assured her, “I wouldn’t do this if there wasn’t something here.”
In his own confessional, he acknowledged he “can’t predict the future.”
“Who’s to say? Like, maybe things will work out with Raquel and I; maybe they won’t. But when I kissed Raquel, I felt like, ‘Wait a minute. You’re not washed up. Your best days aren’t behind you; maybe they’re just beginning.”
On the couch, Sandoval grabbed Leviss’ face. “I just feel like it turned out so horribly wrong,” she said, as the two let out in unison, “We f–ked up.”
“Coulda, shoulda, woulda,” she added, calling their dalliance a “learning experience.”
Both agreed that they would do things differently if they could turn back time but did not elaborate further.
The screen then went dark and a message was displayed that read, “After filming this scene, Raquel turned off her phone and was not seen or heard from for weeks.”
Prior to Sandoval’s conversation with Leviss, he spoke with Madix, who was enraged.
She reminded him that she’s been his “ride-or-die” for nine years and loved him when he “had nothing.”
Of Leviss, Madix said, “That girl is searching for identity in men. She has no identity of her own. Willing to stoop so low as to f–k one of her best friends’ life partners. And that’s someone you think is a good person you should be around?”
The two got into a screaming match over Sandoval’s “friendship with f–king Raquel,” which Madix said was “bulls–t” and “disgusting.”
But Sandoval defended his secret lover, saying she showed him “respect.”
He went on to claim that his relationship with Madix hadn’t been good for a long time, that the two lived “separated” lives, that they had “no sex life” and that she “put pressure” on him to stay with her.
He blamed his behavior on turning 40, which Madix said could’ve been addressed in therapy.
“I regret every moment I ever stood up for you, defended you, supported you,” she said. “You’re worth nothing. And I want you to feel that deep in your soul. I want you to hear those words coming from the mouth of the woman that f–king stood by you and loved you and was ready to build the rest of my life around you. Hear my words and know that that’s how I feel about you. I regret ever loving you.”
Sandoval said he thought they’d be “together forever.” Tearfully, Madix said she “would’ve followed [him] anywhere.”
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She later visited Lisa Vanderpump and sobbed as she explained, “I’ve been trying to lean into my anger because it’s the only thing that keeps me from dry heaving.”
Vanderpump insisted no one “suspected a thing” about Sandoval and Leviss’ “web of deceit” and cried as she assured Madix she would “get through it.”
“Pump Rules” alum Kristen Doute also made her highly anticipated return to the series when she stopped by Madix’s house, which she still shares with Sandoval.
Despite the fact that Sandoval was still dating Doute when he began romancing Madix, the women have been able to hash things out and become good friends over the years.
The two hugged, as Madix admitted that she thought Sandoval’s behavior at the time was an “isolated” incident. She said she’s realized that “this is just who this person is.”
They both cried out of sympathy and compassion for the other’s situation before heading to the backyard to “burn some s–t.”
Sandoval later stopped by Vanderpump’s house to explain himself, insisting he and Leviss “had every intention of telling Ariana before the reunion.”
He cried to Vanderpump, saying he didn’t want his last conversation with Madix to be the one they’d just had, before getting up and hyperventilating by the window.
Vanderpump said she would not turn her back on Sandoval despite condemning his actions, telling him, “You’re not a bad person, Tom, you just did a bad thing.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Katie Maloney pressed Tom Schwartz about how much he knew about the affair and when he found out, but he couldn’t get his story straight.
He then showed up to girls’ night to “look [Madix] in the eyes and say [he’s] so f–king sorry for this whole thing.”
Though Madix received his apology, she said she “will not have mutual friends with” Sandoval.
She got emotional as she added, “I wish that I didn’t miss him. I really wish I didn’t miss him, but I feel like what I miss is not real.”
Sandoval then paid a visit to Shay, who said she “always thought” the rumors that he hooked up with “Miami girl” at the start of his relationship with Madix were “true.”
“Ariana has always known the truth about that,” he said without disclosing details.
“So other than Miami girl, this is the first time you ever cheated on Ariana?” Shay pressed, to which Sandoval replied, “There was one other time.”
“Just a random person?” Shay asked, prompting Sandoval to respond, “Yeah. Well, no. It’s not fair. I’m not going into it.”
Sandoval claimed Madix “threatened to kill herself” when he tried to break up with her and told Shay he didn’t know what to do. Shay said he should’ve done it anyway and flown her family in and gathered her friends around to “pick up the pieces.”
The three-part Season 10 reunion begins airing May 24 on Bravo.
