The Vanderpump Rules cheating scandal is, I think, reaching its pinnacle with the season finale and the three part reunion airing over these next few weeks. From the moment the news broke in March, some people have been wondering if the whole thing was staged. After all, reality shows often manufacture storylines to keep things interesting. I don’t think that the cheating scandal was at all contrived, but some podcasters/fans think that it was possibly orchestrated by Tom Sandoval and the producers, citing other cast members’ suspicious behavior and an extended filming permit as reasons for those belief.
It’s odd the cast members seemed surprised by the affair, some podcasters said
Sarah Cee and Hollie Bohorquez, the hosts of the “Vanderpump Rules Party” podcast, told me that it’s odd the cast seemed “bamboozled” by the announcement given their monthslong speculation. Cee thinks each cast member likely has a different reason for not being more vocal about their suspicions: Maloney, for example, didn’t have many allies in the cast while filming, and potentially didn’t want to jeopardize her relationship with Madix unless she had hard proof of Sandoval’s indiscretion.
Kate Casey, the host of “Reality Life With Kate Casey,” agreed. Leviss “presented herself as a wounded bird” and a good friend, and Casey said that people on reality TV constantly “have to weigh the risks” that come with calling out the misbehavior of a cast member who is potentially more well-liked. “Will this alienate them with the cast, and more importantly the audience?” she said.
But Cee thinks production knew. Bravo has stressed there’s been no reediting of the season to account for the discovery of the affair, “so with that in mind,” Cee said, the show’s producers “had to have known or had very strong inklings.” (Kent has claimed on her podcast, “Give Them Lala,” that they did not.)
One theory: Sandoval and producers were producing a story arc to keep show ratings up
Cee cited an April episode highlighting Sandoval patting Leviss’ butt as an example, and Bohorquez agreed: “I personally feel like they were mapping this out.”
Bohorquez thinks producers, and perhaps even Sandoval himself, might have been attempting to produce a story arc — of Sandoval falling out of love with Madix and falling in love with Leviss — to carry the show into another season. “Production at least knew there was a strong flirtation,” Cee said. “I think they were trying to milk it.”
Bohorquez suggested the cast might have known it would come out during this season, offering potentially damning pieces of evidence that any conspiracy theorist would envy: sly mentions on podcasts of explosive things to come and an odd interaction with the exiled cast member Kristen Doute among them.
Podcasters found a filming permit from after the season wrapped in front of a cast member’s building
But the most damning involved a filming permit Bohorquez and Cee retrieved from in front of a cast member’s building. The permit was in effect until April 2, long after filming for the season had wrapped. After news of the affair came out in March, Bravo infamously resumed filming. “So before Scandoval even broke, they had the filming permits in place to record with when cameras went back.”
Carey O’Donnell and Lara Schoenhals, who host “Sexy Unique Podcast,” aren’t quite as conspiracy-minded. Schoenhals… theory is that producers intended to follow the Sandoval-Leviss rumor as a B or C plot that would eventually fall to the wayside. But after Madix found the evidence, they understood immediately that it was what the show needed to regain attention and started leaking the news for marketing purposes.
“I don’t think people in this world specifically, aside from Lisa Vanderpump, are calculated enough and strategic enough,” Schoenhals said, to successfully fabricate something like this. (It’s a good point.)
O’Donnell joked on the show that he “feels like a 9/11 truther” but thinks Bravo went back and added things to episodes to make Leviss and Sandoval more central to the plot, despite the network’s statements to the contrary.
When reached by Insider, Bravo declined to comment on the podcasters’ theories.
I don’t think the extended filming permit is a smoking gun of any kind. Reality shows — like scripted productions — sometimes do reshoots when the audio is off, etc. A filming permit for outside someone’s building could mean they were just covering their bases just in case they needed to redo an outdoor conversation. I think the producers were trying to milk the flirtation and any suspicions that cast members may have had to keep things interesting, but I don’t think they actively staged the affair. I’m going to echo a refrain from Beyond the Blinds — this show was built on cheating. The first season started after Scheana’s affair with Eddie Ciriban and ended with Jax cheating on Stassi. Then there was Tom/Ariana and Kristen/Jax, and so on throughout its 10 season run. Cheating founded this show and I don’t think the scandal was staged because (A) these people may have wanted to be actors, but they are not and you can see it on their faces — particularly Ariana and Scheana — that it’s real, and (B) Tom and Raquel would not want to be as completely hated as they are now in service of their relationship or fame. The death of Ariana’s dog and grandma in the middle of all this are particularly cold details — so cold that this must be real. The theory I most agree with is the idea that Tom Sandoval was trying to “shadow produce” and lay the groundwork for his and Ariana’s breakup by staging those conversations about their relationship problems with her (unbeknownst to her) and Tom Schwartz.
Also — Tom and Raquel broke up. Supposedly she dipped out, but for real, not just up to his room like his stupid lie. Probably because she knows there’s no redemption arc if they’re together.
