It’s never a good sign when the lawyers get involved, especially when citing revenge porn laws. Such appeared to be the case on Monday (Mar. 6) when attorneys for Raquel Leviss sent a letter to several Vanderpump Rules cast members and friends, per TMZ. Raquel’s lawyers reportedly claimed that the intimate FaceTime recording between her and Tom Sandoval — whose discovery subsequently led to Tom’s split with his longtime partner, Ariana Madix – was recorded without her consent. Raquel’s lawyers reportedly cited a California revenge porn law that outlawed “nonconsensual pornography” and the dissemination of such material.
Raquel’s lawyers reportedly warned the Vanderpump Rules cast that any distribution of the recording – be it on social media or being shared with another person – would be a crime. The letter reportedly doesn’t specifically accuse Tom of illegally recording the conversation; instead, the letter orders anyone in possession of the recording to delete it from their phones, the cloud, or “any other manner or method in which the recording may exist,” per TMZ. The letter ended with the lawyers saying this “matter should be taken very seriously.” HollywoodLife has reached out for confirmation about this letter.
In review: Tom, 39, a Vanderpump Rules cast member since Jan. 2013, began dating Ariana, 37, in 2014. Raquel appeared on Vanderpump in 2016 as co-star James Kennedy’s girlfriend in season five. The alleged affair began in mid-2022, but Ariana only found out in March 2023 after she reportedly unearthed a sexual selfie video from Raquel and a “history of inappropriate texts.” She ended their nine-year relationship then and there.
Tom broke his silence on Mar. 05. “I fully understand and deserve [your] anger and disappointment towards me, but please leave [his business partner Tom Schwartz], my friends, and family out of this situation,” he wrote at the start of his lengthy message. “Please direct [your] anger towards me and not them. They did nothing wrong.” After expressing regret that his business partners were caught in the crossfire of his personal life, Tom said he would be “taking a step back [and] taking a hiatus out of respect for my employees [and] partners. I need some time to address everything else.”
Fans will get a chance to watch this drama unfold on television. Andy Cohen, the godfather of Bravo reality television, said on Mar. 6 that the cameras were on when the drama went down. “You may have heard rumors that the cameras were up over the weekend,” he told his Radio Andy audience on Sirius XM. “Yup, the cameras have been up on everyone getting reactions and filming. You will see this play out in a sense this season of Vanderpump Rules, before the reunion.”