The reality TV phenomenon known as Scandoval is taking another wild turn, with Vanderpump Rules villain Tom Sandoval suing his ex-girlfriend Ariana Madix over the “intimate” FaceTime recordings Madix found on his phone last year.
For anyone new to the Bravo cinematic universe, the video in question depicted VPR co-star Raquel Leviss engaged in phone sex with Sandoval. It confirmed the pair’s secret affair that started behind Madix’s back and led to a ratings bonanza for VPR.
Sandoval’s eight-page lawsuit against Madix was actually filed as a cross-complaint late Tuesday, the same day Sandoval answered Leviss’ previously filed lawsuit against him. In that lawsuit, Leviss accused Sandoval of eavesdropping, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress for his recording of their FaceTime calls without her consent.
In his new claim against Madix, Sandoval says Madix is the one who acted without “authorization or permission” when she accessed his phone and made her own recordings of the stored Leviss video. According to the new complaint, Madix is the one to blame for Leviss’ damages, either “entirely or in part.” Sandoval also is asking the court to award him “punitive damages” from Madix, claiming she acted with “willful and conscious disregard” of his rights.
In her underlying lawsuit first filed in February, Leviss sued Madix as well. She accused Maddix of the same invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims as Sandoval but added a third cause of action for “revenge porn.” According to Leviss, after Madix found the video of her “in a state of undress and masturbating” in the FaceTime calls to Sandoval, Madix copied snippets to her own phone and “distributed” them to others.
The judge overseeing the case has so far denied bids by Sandoval and Madix to dismiss the case based on alleged deficiency or First Amendment grounds. Leviss, whose legal name is Rachel Leviss, is now pushing ahead with a trial date set for November 2025.
“It is abhorrent that Tom Sandoval continues to torment Ms. Madix,” Madix’s Jordan Susman said Wednesday in a statement responding to the cross-complaint. The lawyer says Sandoval engaged “in an illicit affair that shattered [Madix’s] home and stability.” He said Sandoval subjected Madix to “months of emotional warfare” and now is attempting “to further shirk personal responsibility for the effects his actions have had on her and her emotional wellbeing.”
“Mr. Sandoval knows full well what sort of privileges he and Ms. Madix shared in regard to their personal communication devices. If he or his mistress had their way, it would be illegal for someone to discover their spouse or significant other was having an affair,” Susman said. “For Mr. Sandoval to go from begging Ms. Madix for forgiveness to blaming her for his wrongdoing speaks for itself. Even months after the New York Times branded Mr. Sandoval ‘the most hated man in America,’ he has clearly learned nothing and believes it necessary to continue torturing Ms. Madix in a vain effort to rehabilitate his image. Ms. Madix is confident that a jury will see through this latest ploy and dismiss his frivolous claims.”
Sandoval’s lawyers did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment. Meanwhile, Leviss’ lawyer Bryan Freedman was happy to weigh in: “Tom Sandoval should not have recorded Rachel without her consent in the first place. He grossly invaded her privacy. Notwithstanding the court’s determination that Ariana’s conduct was illegal, Tom’s attempt to deflect responsibility for his own wrongdoing is tone deaf.”
In her original 19-page complaint, Leviss claimed that Sandoval “surreptitiously recorded” her as they embarked on a clandestine affair while Sandoval was still living with Madix amid a years-long domestic relationship. As fans of the highly bingeable reality show know, the FaceTime video blew the doors off Sandoval and Leviss’ affair.
According to Madix’s court filings seeking to exit the lawsuit, she found the video on Sandoval’s phone after his device slid out of his pocket while he was performing with his cover band at Tom Tom in West Hollywood, Calif., in March 2023. Madix wrote in a declaration that someone handed her the phone for safekeeping and that her “woman’s intuition” led her to check the device, which she easily accessed because she already knew the code. Madix says she was “shocked” to find a recording of at least one sexually explicit call while scanning the phone alone in the bathroom stall. “I hurriedly took out my own phone and made two recordings of the FaceTime video. Prior to that moment, I considered plaintiff a friend and did not know that she and Mr. Sandoval were having an affair,” Madix wrote.
Madix said she sent the two video snippets to Leviss with a text message reading, “You’re dead to me,” and that was it. “I did not send the videos to anyone else,” she wrote in the sworn statement. She said that when she confronted Sandoval in an alley a short time later, he “forcibly grabbed” her phone and deleted the videos.
In her lawsuit, Leviss said she found the story of how Madix obtained and then lost the video suspicious. Either way, she accused Madix of sharing the videos with unidentified third parties. “Leviss has suffered grave emotional, psychological, financial and reputational harm as a result of Madix’s distribution, dissemination, and publicization of the illicit videos,” the lawsuit said. Leviss said she was “humiliated and villainized” by the alleged actions of Sandoval and Madix. She accused the pair of acting with “malice,” meaning they should be held liable for punitive damages “to deter such conduct in the future.”
“To be clear, Leviss has repeatedly acknowledged that her actions were morally objectionable and hurtful to Madix. She has offered numerous apologies. There is more to the story, however,” Leviss’ lawsuit said. “Lost in the mix was that Leviss was a victim of the predatory and dishonest behavior of an older man, who recorded sexually explicit videos of her without her knowledge or consent, which were then distributed, disseminated and discussed publicly by a scorned woman seeking vengeance, catalyzing the scandal.” Leviss said she ultimately checked herself into a mental health facility and remained there for three months while Bravo and the cast “milked the interest her excoriation had peaked.”
According to Leviss, she was in a “vulnerable state” while filming the show and was “encouraged” by producers to drink alcohol. Leviss said she started sleeping with Sandoval in August 2022 and believes Madix knew about it before she found the video on Sandoval’s phone. She alleged Vanderpump Rules was on the verge of being canceled around this time, as prior plots had “grown stale,” and that Sandoval and Madix “had every incentive” to “leverage” the affair into “the storyline that Vanderpump Rules so desperately needed.”
In his new lawsuit against Madix, Sandoval claims he had no part in Madix finding the video or allegedly sharing it. He said Madix “obtained access” to his phone and “reviewed images, information, data, videos and … Facetime videos between Leviss and Sandoval without Sandoval’s authorization or permission. Sandoval is informed and believes and thereon alleges that Madix made copies of the data and distributed the data to Leviss and third parties without Sandoval’s authorization or permission,” his lawsuit states. He says Madix’s “unpermitted” access to and copying of his data amounted to invasion of privacy. “The intrusion was offensive and objectionable to Sandoval and to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities,” the complaint states.
