Tom Sandoval & Raquel Leviss’ Affair Was Hiding In Plain Sight On Vanderpump Rules Season 10

Nothing has rocked Vanderpump Rules quite like #Scandoval — and it’s not even featured on the show yet. On March 3, nearly a month after the Season 10 premiere, TMZ broke the story that Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix had split after nearly a decade of dating. Ariana discovered Sandoval cheated with co-star Raquel Leviss, in what has turned out to be a full-blown affair lasting several months.

The story especially shocked fans because Leviss, who split from ex-fiancé James Kennedy the season prior, had been openly crushing on Tom Schwartz, who was navigating a divorce from Katie Maloney after five years of marriage, making fans wonder if their little fling was an intentional diversion of what was actually happening off-camera. Naturally, fans are now watching Season 10 in a completely different light, scouring episodes for hints that Sandoval and Leviss’ affair may have been happening while the show was filming.

If timelines reported by People and Kennedy via DeuxMoi DM are correct, Sandoval and Leviss would have been filming at least part of the season while engaging in an off-camera affair, but this has yet to be confirmed. While their castmates clearly weren’t suspicious while cameras were rolling, there are more clues of their relationship than you may think. Red flags fly especially high on the April 19 episode, when three separate people inadvertantly question the true nature of their relationship, but still didn’t suspect anything was actually going on.

Here’s every potential hint about #Scandoval hiding within plain sight on Vanderpump Rules Season 10.

Episode 3

Schwartz and Leviss’ situationship (or whatever you want to call it) truly kicked off in the season’s third episode, when Leviss admitted that she had a crush on Schwartz and said Scheana Shay put the idea in her head. Before heading to Sandoval’s band’s show, Leviss and Schwartz admitted that they had an “innocent” flirtation between them, but things almost got heated later that night when she straight up asked him if he wanted to make out. Schwartz declined, wanting to respect his ex-wife’s boundaries — but not before he asked if cameras were still filming.

Episode 4

Schwartz and Leviss both recounted the previous night to separate friends. When Schwartz remarked that he wanted to respect Maloney’s request that they don’t date other people within their mutual friend group, Sandoval replied, “That’s just not realistic.” And when co-worker Charli Burnett warned Leviss that people would call her a homewrecker after showing interest in Schwartz, Leviss casually remarked, “there is no home to wreck.”

At dinner that night, Leviss admits to Maloney that she asked Schwartz to make out with her the night before, which he declined. Maloney takes Leviss’ confession in stride, pinning the blame on Shay, but she made it clear that Leviss was not respecting her boundaries by being interested in Schwartz. But in an even more chilling moment, Madix reacted to the confession by saying, “Girl, I didn’t know you had it in you.” Sadly, she would find out in a few months’ time.

Episode 5

During a girls trip to Las Vegas, Leviss made out with Garcelle Beauvais’ son Oliver when he was only separated, but not legally divorced, from his wife. However, Kent was the first one to admit that she had a long-standing crush on Oliver that she never acted on due to his wife and kids, and she thought Leviss only seemed interested after she expressed that.

“It is strange to me, though, because Raquel had zero interest in Oliver, until I said, ‘Damn, he kinda fine,’” Kent said in a confessional. “And then all of a sudden, she’s treating this like a pageant and is in competition with me.”

Episode 6

Just hours after the Oliver incident, Kent makes a comment that she wouldn’t trust Leviss around her man when she’s drinking, and Leviss responds by saying, “Thank God you don’t have a man to like f*cking have around.” This is also when Maloney clocks what seems to be a pattern with Leviss. “It seems that she’s only interested in men that her friends are either married to or interested in, and that’s a big red flag for me,” she said in a confessional.

Later in the episode, Sandoval is wearing his lightning bolt necklace while filming at TomTom with Schwartz. Fans have noticed that he and Leviss have similar lightning bolt necklaces, which fans speculate they wore throughout their affair as a secret sign of affection and commitment. At the end of the episode, Leviss told Maloney and Kent that she no longer felt welcome on the girls trip and decided to head back home. To rub salt in the wound, she made plans to meet up with Schwartz and their friends at a bar that night. Clearly, she didn’t learn a thing from hurting Maloney’s feelings.

Episode 9

After getting into an argument with his ex-wife on the April 4 episode, Schwartz decided to make out with literally anyone at Shay’s pre-wedding white party. Naturally, Leviss stepped up to the plate. “I can literally see Raquel’s ears perk up at the sound of Schwartz saying he’s going to make out with someone,” Madix remarked in a confessional. Both Leviss and Schwartz broke clear boundaries established by Maloney by acting on their flirtations, which was encouraged by many castmates beforehand, and they would pay for on later episodes.

Episode 10

After making out with Schwartz, Leviss spilled the tea to Shay, Madix, and Sandoval, who seemed a little too eager to hear the story, repeatedly chanting “Raquel” close to her face. Eagle-eyed fans even noticed that Sandoval may have sneakily grabbed her butt— right in front of Madix. However, as seen in the clips of the alleged moment posted on Twitter, it seems that she just didn’t notice and Leviss subtly laughed it off.

Episode 11

Sandoval and Leviss start to raise major red flags on the April 19 episode, but no one clocked it right away. During an outing at SUR, Lisa Vanderpump caught up with the Toms, who asked Leviss to sit down with them while taking their orders, and the boss caught something very odd. “Why do you like it so much?” she asked Sandoval when Leviss sat in between them. “You’ve got a smile on your face.” However, the conversation quickly moved onto the now-infamous kiss at Scheana’s wedding, making her forget any suspicions.

“You get a lot of joy out of Raquel as well, I think. You go to the Abbey together at one o’clock in the morning.”

Later in the episode, Kennedy’s girlfriend Ally Lewber told him that she had spotted Sandoval and Leviss at gay hotspot The Abbey after his DJ set at SUR, which she also reported to Maloney and Kent the night prior. “I thought it was kind of weird,” she told him. “It was like 1 a.m., and we were like, ‘Where’s Ariana?’” Kennedy made a sarcastic comment about his ex-fiancée being “best of buds”with the Toms, but he still didn’t put much stock into it. “I’ve noticed how much Raquel has been hanging out with the Toms,” he said. “I wouldn’t put too much to it.”

However, Maloney did end up questioning Sandoval about it later that night after he attempted to defend Leviss to her face. “You get a lot of joy out of Raquel as well, I think,” she said. “You go to the Abbey together at one o’clock in the morning.” Before she even finished her sentence, Sandoval got heated and began to defend himself. “Dude, what even the f*ck are you saying, dude?” he said. “Get the f*ck out of here, man.”

Episode 12

At the beginning of the April 26 episode, Maloney and Kent discuss Lewber’s story of seeing Sandoval and Leviss dancing at The Abbey together, with Maloney stating in a confessional that what struck her as odd was Madix not being with him. “I don’t wanna say that Sandoval would ever cheat on Ariana, because umm, I would have to kill him,” she quipped. “But what grabbed my attention the most was just that Tom and Raquel was alone. I’ve been friends with Sandoval for years, and I’ve never gone out alone dancing with him at 1 a.m.”

Things came full circle at the end of the episode when the Abbey story was brought up after a beach day, and Sandoval deflected the conversation to focus on Maloney spreading these rumors. In his confessional, a producer directly asked Sandoval if anything “physical” had happened between him and Raquel. “No, nothing has happened between Raquel and I. Like nothing that wouldn’t happen between, you know, like me and Katie,” he said with a laugh. However, Sandoval has since admitted that he and Raquel first hooked up before Shay’s wedding, which was shown in previous episodes, proving that he was lying to the camera.

Episode 13

In a preview for the May 3 episode, no one can stop talking about the rumors between Sandoval and Leviss. Even Schwartz gets in on the action by making a very awkward joke at dinner. “I don’t wanna kill the vibe, but Raquel has a type. Brock, Tom, be careful tonight,” he said. When asked to specify, he said Leviss’ type was “men that are taken.”

Most significantly, Vanderpump’s husband Ken Todd, who rarely speaks unless necessary, was fuming about a story that he told his wife and Maloney. “I can’t believe that Tom Sandoval had Raquel over when Ariana was away,” he said. “She stayed all night.” The preview ends with Kent making an astute observation about Sandoval’s recent behavior. “I think Sandoval has a thing for Raquel,” she told Kennedy. “The last time that Sandoval was talking about a woman the way he talks about Raquel, it was when he was talking about Ariana while he was with Kristen [Doute].”

This post will be updated as Vanderpump Rules Season 10 continues to play out.