Ariana said it was hard not to love Raquel before the Sandoval cheating scandal

In her corner? Tom Sandoval And Ariana Madix seemed to be on the same wavelength when it came to their friendship with Rachel Leviss before Scandoval made headlines.

During a scene from Vanderpump Rules Secrets Revealed, which aired on Wednesday, June 14, Sandoval, 40, and Ariana, 37, enjoyed a date at a roller skating rink. “You look so fantastic today,” the TomTom co-owner said of his girlfriend at the time. “It’s a beautiful dance of hot and cute you’re doing.”

Ariana, for her part, said she was excited to spend more time with the bartender, who she started dating in 2013. that will help us come back and rebuild those fun romantic times now that we hopefully have more time together,” she said in a confessional. “But I think those sacrifices – even if they are hard – are worth it. I want him to succeed when it comes to opening the bar, but I also miss being able to just really be together.”

After the pair skated together, they changed the subject to Raquel, 28. Both Sandoval and Ariana praised the model amid her ups and downs with their peers. Vanderpump Rules actors.

‘I said to Kate [Maloney]I was like, ‘You know, you’re going to have to work really hard to make sure I don’t just love Raquel all the way,'” the Something About Her co-founder recalled in the scene, which was filmed in August 2022 “I love her so much, and we’ve spent so much time together on trips and we have a really lovely little friendship family.”

Ariana continued, “And they said things like, ‘I wouldn’t trust Raquel around my husband.’ I’m like, ‘We’ve all stayed in houses together. It sucks that maybe you guys don’t have that friendship family we’ve had together over the years.’”

In response, Sandoval pointed out that he and Ariana have a “transparent love” between them and their friends.

The previously unseen conversation between the duo took place shortly after Sandoval made contact with Raquel off-screen. In March, Us weekly confirmed that the Missouri native had divorced Ariana after nearly a decade of dating due to his affair with the former beauty pageant queen.

After Sandoval and Raquel issued separate public apologies to Ariana, the entire cast discussed the scandal and its aftermath during the bombshell reunion. The Florida resident later recalled being shocked by Sandoval and Raquel’s cheating.

“To be clear, I didn’t lose him,” she said on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast in May. ‘He’s lost me. But I think I trusted him so much…that I trusted his view of things.

She added: “I feel like we were going to have so many great times together so if there were some weeks that weren’t great or if I wasn’t sure about anything [in the relationship], there were so many other things that were great. … It was almost, I think, hard to say, ‘Oh, this person isn’t right for me,’ because I had also never been in a relationship that long before.

At the time, Ariana admitted that she might “turn a blind eye” to red flags between Sandoval and Raquel. “But I think I got a lot of help with that because I would bring things up and then get shot,” she explained. “I was very committed and I feel like I did my very best as a partner. But I don’t think I would do anything different just because I feel like all I can do is give my best – and whether or not my best was good enough for someone, that was.

The Fancy AF cocktails co-author has since clarified where she stands with her ex-boyfriend and former boyfriend. “Neither of me have anything to say,” Ariana said The New York Times in May when asked if she was “open to filming with” Sandoval and Raquel for season 11, which has not yet begun production. “Our show is very real and follows a real friend group, and neither of us are in the friend group, so good luck.”