The former 'Vanderpump Rules' star called the situation 'wild.'
Tom Sandoval is standing his ground. On a new episode of The Viall Files podcast, former Vanderpump Rules star Kristen Doute claimed that her ex-boyfriend is refusing to vacate the home he shares with Ariana Madix amid his cheating scandal with Raquel Leviss. Bravo had no comment on Doute's podcast claims.
"He owns the home, but is he leveraging that as, 'Well, it's mine.' And, 'F**k you. I don't care,' and, 'You can't tell me to go?'" host Nick Viall questioned.
"That's exactly what he's doing," Doute answered, before calling his actions "wild."
"We tried having a mutual friend, one of Ariana's college best friends, rather than someone too close to them [reach out to him]... just saying, 'Listen, dude, you gotta at least give her a couple hours heads-up when you need to come home to pick things up. You need to let this rest for at least a few weeks. Allow her to grieve, allow her to heal,'" Doute said. "And of course, his response is, 'It's my f**king house. I own half of it. I will come and go as I please, and if she has a problem with it, she can leave.'"
As a result of the situation, Doute said that Madix "won't be home alone, because that's what she's most afraid of, being home alone and then having him waltz in."
Madix is currently considering other living options, one of which came courtesy of Lisa Vanderpump herself.
"Ariana has said that Lisa has welcomed her with open arms," Doute said. "Like, 'You can come bring your dog and your cat, you can come stay at Villa Rosa.' Ariana's like, 'S**t. Do I just, do I do that? That sounds fabulous. Go to Beverly Park and enjoy myself?'"
While Madix, who recently broke her silence on the situation, hasn't made a move just yet, she did get out of town for a bit when she attended a pal's wedding in Mexico.
"She's devastated. She's humiliated. She was in Mexico over the weekend for a wedding and I haven't seen her since, but I've talked to her and she was just like, 'It was really nice to get away from everything,'" Doute said. "She's not quite ready to come back to real life... She's very nervous and afraid for the first time she's going to have to sit alone with these thoughts and, like, truly deal with the reality of it all, post-filming. I told her, 'I get it, but you don't have to be right now. There's no timeline. Don't force yourself.'"
Doute claimed that Bravo was interested in moving up that timeline a bit, but said that production refused to do so.
"The network asked production at one point in the last few weeks if Ariana would film with her and I know production really had her back and said, 'We're not even going to ask her that. Not happening,'" Doute said. "... They definitely haven't spoken or seen each other. Ariana wants nothing to do with her right now."
The women will likely reunite for the first time at the taping of Vanderpump Rules' season 10 reunion, which will "be bad enough" for Madix, Doute said. There are still questions about who will participate in the reunion, though, largely due to Leviss' restraining order against Scheana Shay, which she got after alleging the latter woman punched her. Shay has denied the claims.
"How convenient that she gets this ridiculous, temporary restraining order against Scheana that is granted only until the hearing on March 29, right?" Doute said. "But they have to film the reunion on March 23. How convenient that Raquel now does not have to sit under those hot lights and be in the hot seat."
"I don't know what they're going to do unless they move the reunion, which as far as I know, they haven't planned on that," she added. "Scheana can't even be on a Zoom with her, according to said temporary restraining order, so I just think it's really f**king convenient and I think it's Raquel's way of getting out of it."
After this season wraps, Doute thinks it's unlikely that Leviss will return to the series. "I don't see her coming back, because I think she's gonna be terrified," she explained.
Also getting heat for the whole situation is Tom Schwartz, Sandoval's best friend and business partner, as people question what he knew and when.
"We're being told by Schwartz... that Tom Sandoval told his mother in December, and then told Schwartz about a month ago," Doute said. "... He said that he was really pushing Tom to just be honest with Ariana off-camera. Obviously, it would have to get talked about anyway, on or off camera, but to not let this completely humiliate her and blow up in their face by coming out."
"I believe that he feels that way, but Schwartz doesn't act on anything. He's a p**sy. I love him to death, but, like, man the f**k up. This is your opportunity to man up, and this is your business partner and it is your best friend," she continued. "I'm not saying you have to loathe him the way that we all do, but I'll tell you right f**king now, if this was one of my girlfriends pulling this, we would be having serious conversations."
While Doute doesn't believe that Schwartz knew about the affair the whole time, she does think "he knew longer than he's copping to."
"Sandoval has to have validation. He cannot keep anything a secret, because he needs at least one person to validate and hear him bragging about it. And that person is Schwartz," she said. "... I'm thinking Schwartz probably didn't know over the summer while they were filming. I'm guessing early fall, is what it sounds like. If I had to guess."
When it comes to how she feels about Leviss now, Doute didn't mince words.
"[Raquel] is so f**king dumb. She's just so dumb. She has no personality, and now in hindsight, I can see why Tom is, I guess, into her, or why they're doing this," she said. "Ariana has a backbone, Raquel does not. Raquel validates everything that Tom needs to be validated: how cool he is, how talented he is, his stupid band and his sequin pants, and his nail polish and his dumb haircuts and... the mustache, for f**k's sake! The pedophile mustache."
Doute has a similar disdain for her ex-boyfriend, stating, "I think he's a narcissist and he's just very... self-centered."
"Once Ariana and I became friends and got over that whole hump many years ago, I, like, worship the ground she walks on to be able to deal with someone so narcissistic and someone so attention-needy and spotlight-thriving," she added.
Doute additionally said that she doesn't believe that Sandoval and Leviss are genuinely sorry about the situation, as she claims that the former "was just gaslighting" Madix and "blaming her" for the affair and the latter is "sorry she got caught."
"You can't steal a man, OK? He made a free-willed choice to do what he did... I do place a little more blame on him," Doute said. "However, Raquel's claiming to be Ariana's 'best friend.' She let Raquel sleep in her home, stay there for a while... They had Thanksgiving together, swimming together, eating her food. Ariana's being nothing but hospitable to you and this is how you return the favors? I think they're both pretty equally to blame. I don't think Raquel was 'taken advantage of.' She's not 21."
As for why Doute returned to the show that she was fired from amid controversy and is speaking out about the situation now, she said it's all at Madix's request.
"I filmed that scene because Ariana specifically said, 'I really need you to do this to me,'" she said. "I told her, 'I have nothing to gain from this. I, in fact, will probably look like an opportunist, or thirsty.' I specifically said to her, 'This has nothing to do with the network, the production, the ratings, the whatever. What do you need? Because you've also now had to talk about this a million times with so many different people, on and off camera. So, if this is just one more time you don't want to do that, I don't need to do it.' And she wanted me to it, so I did."
"I am not banking on her heartbreak," Doute added. "This is something she asked me to do. She was like, 'Go talk about it. Be my mouthpiece.' She's told all the girls and I that. I'm just the only one who's legally allowed to."
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