It’s been more than a year since the world learned that Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval cheated on his longtime partner, Ariana Madix, with the then-couple’s close friend and castmate, Rachel Leviss, formerly Raquel. But the fallout of Scandoval is far from over. On Thursday, L.A. Superior Court Judge Daniel Crowley ruled that the revenge-porn lawsuit Leviss filed against the former couple can move forward — despite Madix’s attempt to have it dropped — and the trio will meet in court next year.
In March 2023, Madix famously learned about Sandoval’s affair after going through his phone and finding sexually explicit messages and videos of Leviss, including one of her masturbating. Madix has admitted that she sent two videos to her own phone and also texted a copy to Leviss with the message, “You are DEAD TO ME.” When news of the affair broke, Leviss’s lawyers reached out to several VPR cast members, warning them that the explicit video was made “illegally without Raquel’s knowledge or consent.” That video is now the center of Leviss’s lawsuit against Madix and Sandoval.
In February, Leviss sued the former couple for revenge porn, eavesdropping, and invasion of privacy. She accused Sandoval of recording the videos of her without her knowledge or consent and alleged that Madix “distributed, disseminated, and discussed them.” Sandoval countered, saying because the videos were recorded on FaceTime, they were consensual. Meanwhile, Madix argued that sending the videos to herself and Leviss was protected free speech. On July 11, the judge sided with Leviss and set a court date for November 2025.
Here’s where what we know about the Scandoval-related lawsuits.
Leviss sued Madix and Sandoval under a revenge-porn statute.
In her suit, Leviss claims that she’s “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 is seeking unspecified damages and the destruction of any copies of the video that still exist. She admits that the cheating was “morally objectionable and deeply hurtful to Madix.” But she insists that “this lawsuit is squarely about illegal behavior and those who traffic in it and enable it. Rachel has apologized for her part in an affair. That’s not a crime. Tom and Ariana are alleged here to have engaged in criminal acts. They then doubled down and used those actions to shame, bully, belittle, and intentionally try to destroy Rachel’s mental health,” Leviss’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, said in a statement to the Cut earlier this year.
Judge Crowley dropped the intentional infliction of emotional distress accusation.
Madix and Sandoval made separate attempts to dismiss Leviss’s suit.
A few days after Leviss’s suit, Sandoval filed a motion to strike parts of her suit about how the video was obtained and claimed that Leviss knew about the videos and gave her consent, per Deadline. “These videos were created by Leviss and published by Leviss to Sandoval via a consensual exchange on Facetime, i.e., ‘their video calls,’” Sandoval alleged. “Based on Leviss’ own allegations, Sandoval merely saved private copies of the videos that Leviss had filmed and shared with him.”
The following week, Madix submitted her own response attempting to dismiss the suit. In her filing, Madix said Leviss’s suit was “not only illogical but also a clear violation” of Madix’s “right to speak freely about matters of public concern.” In a hearing on July 11, Madix’s attorney argued that by participating in a reality show, Leviss was a public figure, and the video of her masturbating was a topic of public interest. “Ms. Leviss has put her entire life, including her sex life, before the public,” said Madix’s attorney, Jordan Sussman, according to the Courthouse News Service.
Leviss’s lawyers, Bryan Freedman and Jason Sunshine, pushed back. “The law suggests that anything beyond the expressly authorized dissemination of pornographic materials constitutes revenge porn,” said Sunshine. “The act was intended to menace her, to terrorize her, to put her on notice that Ms. Madix knows about the affair and hates her.” The judge ultimately sided with Leviss and set a court date for November 3, 2025, though that could change.
Leviss isn’t suing Bravo, but she doesn’t let the network off easy.
Bravo and the production company Evolution Media aren’t defendants in Leviss’s suit, but her lawyers didn’t let them off the hook. In the filing, they claim that both companies led Leviss to believe she couldn’t speak out about Sandoval and Madix’s alleged mistreatment.
“As a result, she suffered in silence as Bravo and Evolution watched viewership explode, and the rest of the cast enjoyed unseen levels of public recognition and professional opportunity,” the suit claims. “Meanwhile, Leviss, who was humiliated and villainized for public consumption, remains a shell of her former self, with her career prospects stunted and her reputation in tatters.”
Leviss also contends that the chaos brought into her life because of the scandal and affair culminated in “monthslong in-patient treatment at a mental-health facility and her departure from the show,” the suit reads, according to excerpts published by Deadline. “Fomented by Bravo and Evolution in conjunction with the cast, Leviss was subjected to a public skewering with little precedent and became, without exaggeration, one of the most hated women in America.”
In March, Vanderpump Rules’s titular star and executive producer, Lisa Vanderpump, called the lawsuit “ridiculous,” telling TMZ, “I think if you don’t want to have somebody share your porn, then don’t send it to your best friend’s boyfriend, right?” She also joked that Madix never shared the video with her. “Why did she leave me out? I don’t get it,” she said.
The Cut has reached out to representatives for Sandoval and Madix for further comment and will update this post when we hear back.
