Rachel Leviss recalls ’embarrassing’ first meeting with Tom Sandoval while his girlfriend Ariana Madix slept upstairs: ‘It was really bad’

Rachel Leviss shared details about her “very bad” first meeting with former Vanderpump Rules co-star Tom Sandoval.

The reality star, 29, got candid about the “embarrassing” beginning of her and Sandoval, 40, affair in the first episode of her new podcast, Rachel goes rogue.

Leviss — who recently shared that 2023 was her “hardest year yet” — explained that the evening started with her and Sandoval having drinks at The Abbey in West Hollywood, before she offered to give him a ride home.

When they arrived at his house, where his then-girlfriend Ariana Madix, 38, was sleeping upstairs, Sandoval invited her for a drink.

However, he was eventually locked out as he and Leviss went to his backyard.

“We go to the back and the sliding door is unlocked, so he said, ‘Well, we have the fire pit here,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, the fire pit is cool, we can just keep talking,'” she revealed.

“We got the fire pit going, we’re chatting, and then he says, ‘You know what’s the best thing about this pool? That it is heated.’

The pair then took a dip in the pool: ‘I took off my jeans and I had this corset top on, so I left that on, and I was in my underwear, and I went in his pool and it was heated. ‘

Meanwhile, Sandoval stripped down to his boxers, and while they were swimming at first on the other side of the pool, he eventually swam over to her to ask her to turn down the music she was playing on her phone.

“And then he looked at me in a certain way and then he grabbed me and turned me around and kissed me and I was surprised but also happy,” she said.

Rachel then added, “Um, so bad, so embarrassing.”

‘I knew it was wrong, Tom knew it was wrong. Immediately after Tom kissed me, he sat as if on the pool steps and, with his hands on his face, thought his mind must be running a million miles a minute, thinking about what to do,” she continued .

Rachel said she started to get dressed and thought she had to leave, but Sandoval asked her to sit down while he assessed the situation.

‘Wait a minute, I need to think. I just don’t know what to do now because I really like you,” he reportedly told her.

Meanwhile, Rachel said she would feel more comfortable talking in her car. After the duo returned to the vehicle, they got to work.

When her co-host asked if they did “anything,” Leviss replied, “It was very bad.”

During the podcast, she also revealed that hearing Sandoval during a recent podcast interview made her feel like she was “going to throw up.”

‘His voice disgusted me. And I thought, “Okay, this is a good sign.”‘

Before their first kiss, Leviss explained that Sandoval “was always there for me.”

“It felt like he was always there for me because we would literally FaceTime all hours of the day, every day, and he would come to my apartment and we would just kick him on my balcony and vent about our shooting. experience, and we bonded over that unique situation of being on a reality TV show and the things that happened behind the scenes that don’t get talked about, and you know, viewers don’t really know about that,” she said.

‘He understood and that made me feel seen and heard by him. I felt validated, and it seemed like he was always willing to drop everything to come to me.”

Leviss also explained why she chose not to return to Vanderpump Rules for season 11 after the affair came to light.

‘I don’t want to be with Tom and I have made the decision to cut Tom out of my life. If I went back to do the show, it would force me to interact with him… and I know I’m in the suburbs with the other cast, so I wouldn’t get my story across.”

“I truly believe that the girls would not give me the time to open up to them given my history of interactions with them.”

‘I had become the worst version of myself because of the seven months of secrecy, deception and buying into the lies that were eating me up. And some of that is my fault… and it was a very bad choice,” she said.

‘But I was still in a relationship with Tom, we were on the phone when I went for treatment and in those months I was there I thought about whether or not I should do the show.’

But now she believes she “made the right decision by leaving.”

Leviss and Sandoval’s months-long affair came to light in March 2023, ending Tom and Ariana’s nine-year relationship.

Season 11 of Vanderpump Rules premieres January 30 at 8 PM ET on Bravo.