Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix breaks silence on boyfriend’s affair with castmate
Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix has said she is “devastated and broken” after finding out that her long-term boyfriend was cheating on her with her co-star.
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US reality TV star Ariana Madix has broken her silence after her longtime boyfriend, Tom Sandoval, had an affair with their Vanderpump Rules co-star Raquel Leviss.
Madix spoke out for the first time on Instagram, saying she’s been “devastated and broken” since finding out the news of the cheating scandal that has enveloped the reality show about servers at a hip LA restaurant.
But she thanked her friends and fans for “the outpouring of love and support”.
“Hi, where to begin?” she wrote to her 1.4 million followers on the platform alongside a snap of herself, New York Post reports.
“I want to express my most sincere gratitude for the outpouring of love and support I have received from friends, family, and people I’ve never even met in the last two weeks.”
“When I have felt like I couldn’t even stand, you all have given me the strength to continue and seen me through my darkest hours,” she said.
“To say I have been devastated and broken is an understatement. However, I know that I am not in this alone,” wrote Madix, who dated Sandoval for almost a decade.
“So many of my closest friends are also grieving this loss right now and reeling from this betrayal on so many levels.”
“I am so f***ing lucky to have the best support system in the world and I hope I can repay every single person for the love you have shown me,” she went on.
“What doesn’t kill me better run,” she concluded her lengthy caption.
Her comments come after Page Six confirmed on March 3 that Madix, 37, and Sandoval, 39, broke up once she found out he and Leviss, 28, had been “communicating inappropriately for months”.
A source told us at the time that Madix was “blindsided” by the dalliance and had “no idea there were any issues” between her and Sandoval, who she had been dating since 2013.
Not only that, but Madix and Leviss had grown close in recent months, leaving Madix feeling “betrayed by her friend”.
Madix reportedly “found out” about the pair’s “full-on affair” on March 1 while attending Sandoval’s cover band’s show, where he gushed about “respecting” his now ex-girlfriend.
When asked how their relationship had withstood the test of time, Sandoval said he and Madix were “really good about respecting each other”.
While they’ve had their “ups and downs,” Sandoval said they both had “each other’s backs in a reasonable way”.
As news of the affair came to light, both Sandoval and Leviss issued social media statements, respectively.
“I want to apologise to Ariana. I made mistakes, I was selfish, and made reckless decisions that hurt somebody I love,” Sandoval wrote last week on Instagram.
“No one deserves to feel that pain so traumatically and publicly. I can only imagine how devastating this has been for Ariana and everyone around us.
“I feel really horrible about that,” he continued. “My biggest regret is that I dishonoured Ariana. I never meant to disappoint so many people, including our loving families and friends … I owed Ariana better.”
For her part, Leviss issued a lengthy statement in which she blamed the affair on her “addiction” to love and vowed to do better from here on out.
“I am reflecting on my choices, speaking to a counsellor and I am learning things about myself such as my patterns of co-dependency and addiction to being and feeling loved,” she wrote.
“I have sought emotional validation through intimate connections that are not healthy without regard for my own wellbeing, sometimes negatively affecting others and often prioritising the intimate connection over my friendships.”
While this is the first time Madix has addressed the affair, her brother, Jeremy Madix, was quick to defend her – and slam Sandoval – on social media just hours after the news broke.
On cast member James Kennedy’s Instagram post about the matter, Jeremy called Sandoval a “try-hard having a midlife crisis with his cringey band” before taking shots at Leviss, who he said “has faked her way to the top”.
Amid the controversy, Sandoval publicly apologised to Madix on March 8, writing in part on Instagram that he “made mistakes” and “reckless decisions that hurt somebody” he loved.
“No one deserves to feel that pain so traumatically and publicly,” he said. “I can only imagine how devastating this has been for Ariana and everyone around us. I feel really horrible about that.”
Leviss also said: “There is no excuse. I am not a victim, and I must own my actions, and I deeply regret hurting Ariana.”
This story was published by New York Post and reproduced with permission
Originally published as Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix breaks silence on boyfriend’s affair with castmate
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