I Watched The Tom Sandoval Interview So You Don't Have To
Everything you need to know from his sit-down with Howie Mandel
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Whew, where do we even begin?
Yesterday, “America’s Got Talent” judge Howie Mandel revealed on something called the “H3 Podcast” that Tom Sandoval from “Vanderpump Rules” was doing his first tell-all interview about Scandoval on Howie’s podcast, to be released today. Other than his initial statements on Instagram, this would indeed be Sandoval’s first time publicly speaking about Scandoval (other than whatever he taped for “Pump Rules” that hasn’t aired yet). Neither Ariana nor Raquel have done interviews yet.
First of all, shout out to BravoBabe on Instagram for figuring out the reason why Sandoval chose Howie Mandel’s podcast of all places to spill the tea: The manager and drummer for Sandoval’s cover band is married to Howie’s podcast producer. (lol okay)
Anyway, earlier this afternoon, Sandoval’s interview with Howie aired live on YouTube, and naturally I couldn’t help myself and had to watch it. I know there’s a lot of Scandoval fatigue and a lot of people (including myself) didn’t really care to hear from him (especially before Ariana — someone get her on “Watch What Happens Live!” immediately!), but considering how closely we’ve been following the entire thing in these parts for over a month, I figured I’d send out a recap with everything notable that he said.
Outside of Sandoval’s own unwillingness to take any real accountability without any caveats thrown in, my biggest problem with this interview was that Howie Mandel has literally never seen an episode of “Vanderpump Rules” in his life. While he had his daughter there to provide context, he clearly did very little research for this interview, and everyone would’ve been better served here if the person conducting the interview knew what they were even talking about.
It’s pretty clear that Sandoval was given the space to go essentially unchallenged while sharing his story for the first time, while Howie got the coup of the year so far as far as the reality TV world is concerned. Throughout the interview, Howie constantly interjected to express how unfair the treatment of Tom has been, how commendable it is that he’s opening up about it and how much this entire situation has been blown out of proportion. Are there cases to be made for some of those opinions? Maybe, but I’m only going to listen to them if they’re coming from someone with actual knowledge of the situation. Not someone doing a favor for the spouse of their podcast producer in exchange for a huge spike in viewership to said podcast, which I didn’t even know existed until yesterday.
With all that being said, since the interview was over an hour long, I figured I would jot down a bunch of bullet points for you with quotes, thoughts, feelings, etc.
Tom’s biggest defense is that he claims he and Ariana had essentially living “separate lives” for a while. They’d agreed to “keep the optics up” that they were a “solid, powerful couple” for the sake of the show and their brands, but “communication was not great” and “we just kept growing apart.” He blamed both of them for that.
He said that they were both dealing with anxiety and depression, but that they were dealing with it differently. He responds to things by being more social, going out and seeing friends. She responds by “staying in bed all day and isolating herself.”
Turning 40 was a big turning point for him: “I turned 40 and I started to look at all my life. […] I accepted it. Ken and Lisa don’t have sex all the time, and this is probably how it is.” He said he initially felt it was worth accepting for the sake of the image and the “safety” that he felt in carrying on with the relationship.
But then he said he didn’t want to accept that: “It looked very bleak. I started to think my best years were behind me. I started losing my optimism in live. I started to feel trapped. […] I feel like I really need to make a change to feel alive again.”
In the meantime, he says that “Raquel and I had slowly become really good friends” and confiding in one another after her split from James Kennedy. This is when he really started “pulling away” from his relationship with Ariana, while also apparently trying to push Schwartz and Raquel together.
The guys’ night last August that we saw on the show was, as everyone suspected, a huge turning point. Sandoval said that he and Raquel stayed up all night, hanging out at the fire pit in his backyard because he got locked out of his house. They had a “magnetic” kiss and he says “I felt something that I hadn’t felt in so long.”
“It wasn’t just a kiss,” Sandoval later clarified. When Howie said that he said it had been just a kiss the first night, Sandoval said, “That’s what started something. We backed off. But then, it just…” before implying that more than just a kiss happened in “our backyard.”
Sandoval then started going to therapy to figure out what he wanted to do, but “logic went out the window” and his feelings for Raquel “took over.” He says he and Raquel were “obsessive” about trying to see one another at this time, but implied that it didn’t get physical again for a bit of time (unclear how long or when exactly they hooked up again). “I was seeing Raquel as often as I could. FaceTiming her all the time,” Sandoval said. “Ariana didn’t even notice.”
In Cancun for Scheana’s wedding, Sandoval said he was “proud” of Schwartz and Raquel for saying “fuck you” to Lala, Katie, etc. by kissing in front of them. He says that when they got back from Mexico, Schwartz told Sandoval that he wasn’t interested in pursuing something with Raquel, so that’s when Sandoval told him about their kiss and connection.
After doing a lot of solo therapy, he ~finally~ got Ariana to join him for couples therapy. He says that leading up to that “she was just always annoyed with me” and “would never apologize” for things, saying that he apologized to her a lot (lol).
“I already knew that this wasn’t right, and we both deserved better and to be happy and have our needs met,” he said. “I didn’t tell this to Ariana, because to her we had plans to spend the rest of our lives with each other. I knew this would be a very hard thing for her to accept.” (No shit…)
He said he started to “plant the seed” of a split in couples therapy because he was already too checked out of the relationship to be pulled back: “My plan was to break up with her in therapy.”
As a result of couples therapy, Ariana “fully 180’d, became so accepting of me, so much less judgmental.” She started to plan trips for them but he said, “I don’t want to do that anymore.” She was still fighting for the relationship, though, and he started to feel bad. He said, “Whoever gets that version of Ariana is going to be the luckiest person.” (lol)
He planned to break up with her on Valentine’s Day. He said that whenever he brought up the idea of them splitting up, Ariana would threaten to pull out of the reunion, pull out of the show, delete social media and move away. He said they could keep it private for the sake of their brand image as a couple and because they were on hold for a mixology-related job opportunity. But then he also said that it wasn’t fair for her to not want to show their relationship troubles on the show when everyone else was doing it.
“She was very upset. She fricken’ punched me,” he claimed about when he tried to break up with Ariana, saying she told him, “I’m not letting you leave me.” He still hadn’t told her about Raquel yet. “If you break up with me, you will effectively be ending my life,” Sandoval claimed Ariana said. “I didn’t know what to do. She was completely in denial and not accepting it.” He calls it the most upset he’d ever seen her.
He said going into the night she found the Raquel FaceTime on his phone at an event/performance, she was being more PDA than they’d ever been and asked him about fertilizing their eggs, even though he claims he’d broken up with her.
As for where he and Raquel stand now, he said: “We’re really good friends. We’re not putting any label on it. We’re just kind of taking a break.” When Howie asked if they were friends with benefits, he said “not right now.”
He was absolutely incredulous over the fact that Scandoval was covered by CNN.
He said that of the two things that happened (ending the relationship and the affair), “by far the most painful” for Ariana was the ending of the relationship. Same goes for their friends, apparently.
Speaking of their friends, he said that “what hurts the most” in the whole situation is that they’re all using it as a way to bring up things from years ago on social media and on their podcasts, etc. He said, “Why would you try to kick me when I’m down?”
Sandoval and Ariana are still living together (but apart) in their house, which they plan on selling soon. He said it’s been “really calm lately” and they text one another heads up when they’re coming and going and want to use their home gym (lol).
He said he’s had “some really dark thoughts,” saying he was relying on drinking a lot at the beginning of this whole situation. He was four days sober when they recorded the interview.
He said he was “on the run for days” from the paparazzi and everything when the news first broke. He admitted to being an “asshole at times” but he’s finally taking the time to reflect on everything now. He said, “I have not felt totally safe revealing everything.”
The interview ended with Howie shaving off Sandoval’s mustache. It’s a cursed image that I had to witness, so I’m sharing it too for trauma bonding purposes:
That was it. I’m going to take his word with a grain of salt until we hear from Ariana because, as we all know, there are two sides to every story. This was a very biased space for Sandoval to share his side of the story with a bunch of spin that “benefits” him.
While I do believe that he had thrown in the towel on their relationship once he kissed Raquel, deciding to then bring Ariana to couples therapy and give her a false sense of hope for the future of their relationship wasn’t fair. Neither, of course, was carrying on a secret affair with one of her best friends in the meantime, no matter how many clues she picked up on or times she turned a blind eye. He wasn’t man enough to actually tell her what was going on before it became public news that embarrassed her on a global scale.
Ultimately, Ariana is still walking away from this relationship winning. If this is the angle Sandoval is going for, then she has nothing to worry about. She’s booked and busy and has universal support from viewers. I’m looking forward to her sharing her side of the story when she’s ready. We’re all ears.
You’re doing god’s work digesting this interview for us!
I’m 20 minutes in but it’s so despicable he continues to tear ariana down by saying there’s no intimacy, no connection, that their relationship was just a “brand”, but has no problem building up rachel of how amazing she is and how much they bonded. He truly couldn’t give ariana the common grace of “i love ariana, we were together for a decade and i was wrong” he just keeps doubling down on painting ariana in a bad light to make himself defensible