'Fancy AF' Authors (and 'Vanderpump Rules' Stars) Ariana Madix & Tom Sandoval Have A Magic Hangover Cure

By Kate Hudson | Celebrity | December 11, 2019 |

By Kate Hudson | Celebrity | December 11, 2019 |

It’s not every day you get to talk theology with the Pope, is it? Well, I got the opportunity this Monday when I hauled my almost comatose, hungover AF ass to a book signing in LA for Vanderpump Rules stars Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval’s new cocktail recipe book, “Fancy AF” and spoke to the professional drinkers (their words, not mine) about their personally-vouched-for hangover cure. However, I’m getting ahead of myself.

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If you watch this show, you already know that the book is out, but for those of you who are here to hear about the hangover cure I promised in the title, let me tell you who Tom and Ariana are, first(and I need to make some apologies, too…). Tom and Ariana co-star in the Shakespearan dramady Vanderpump Rules, a show I watch religiously and occasionally recap here, basically so I can read everyone else’s thoughts about what went down in the comments because Bravo people are my people. As a chaotic-good (borderline neutral) person, I am more drawn to the show’s agents of chaos, Stassi and Jax, and have occasionally said mild-to-moderately s*itty things about Ariana and Tom on this very site, because reality TV show is a spectator sport and you know, we tend to treat people on these shows like our favorite sports teams instead of like real people. I’m not saying it’s right; I’m saying that’s how it is.

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Tom and Ariana have been together for years, and for about as long, Ariana has been talking about getting her cocktail book written and published. One of the storylines on the show was how Tom wanted to be involved and then subsequently held up the whole shebang for reasons not totally clear but made for good TV, so #respect. Anyway, the book got written (with the help of Danny Pellegrino, their third co-author) and there I was at their signing at the Grove in LA on Monday, hungover AF because I was a real dummy who went out hard (too hard!) the night before (on a SCHOOL night no less) and somehow ended up reading our bartender’s palm at midnight to encourage her to move to England to pursue her dreams because I’m that kind of chick when I’m drinking. (Let’s be honest, probably when I’m not drinking, too.)

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Friends. I was miserable. Too wrapped up in my own personal hell of headache, tiredness, and feeling the bad decisions oozing out of my pores from the night before to appreciate that I was behind Ariana’s brother in the check-in line, and when asked where his ticket was he simply pointed to the book and said, “that’s my sister.” A real power move if there ever was one and one I should have appreciated more in the moment. I was almost too miserable to take in the beautiful magic of Scheana “Good as Gold” Shay coming to the signing, standing at the back, declaring that Tom and Ariana were “her best friends” (aren’t we all, to Scheana?) all the while wearing a super big puffy jacket, with a crop top and workout pants underneath, standing next to her boyfriend who looked like Jason Momoa’s cousin, if Jason Momoa’s cousin was the best looking dude from his small town in Ohio. Never suffer under the delusion that Scheana isn’t living her best life, and we should all aspire to that level she operates under every day.

However, I perked up once someone in the audience asked Tom and Ariana what their hangover cure was—and Tom, ever the professional, delivered the goods.

Friends—the Vanderpump Rules approved hangover cure is a simple medicine called “Midol Complete.” Per Tom—it has a diuretic to get all the toxins out of your body. An anti-histamine to get the redness and swelling down in your face. A pain relief component to cure the headache, and finally—the most beautiful drug in all the land—caffeine, to get you going.

He recommended that you take it 30 minutes before you have to be up, after a night of bad decisions, and you will rise like a vampire out of the coffin, ready to face the night. Rest assured, if you were to buy their book (and I recommend you do, because they rank their drinks from “Classy” to “Trashy,” which is exactly the barometer I need, because sometimes you feel like a Lisa Vanderpump and sometimes you feel like a Laura Leigh) they mention taking a Midol Complete in their hangover cures section.

Like I said, it’s not every day you get to talk religion with the Pope, and when you get to talk hangover cures with a cast member of Vanderpump Rules, you know you’ve stumbled on to something truly magical. Especially because I suspect if I ended up at Jax’s beer cheese event, the entire evening would end with him angrily throwing Meemaw’s beer cheese samples at the audience, calling us all “f*cking fakes” and storming out of the thing as Brittany looked on, unsure of what to do, nervously laughing. Which is to say, Ariana and Tom (and Danny!) handled this whole thing like champs.

Part of the book signing was having a quick meet and greet with Ariana and Tom (and Danny! I have to hand it to him, it must suck to know that 99 percent of people are just there to talk to Ariana and Tom, and my man handled that very gracefully)—and since my hungover dummy self came relatively close to when the event started, I was toward the back. Which meant for an hour plus, I watched the two of them talk to their fans, take their picture, and in Tom’s case, basically write essays in the inscription to fans who f-ing came prepared with essays on their sticky notes for him to inscribe (I just used my name. It was good enough.) By the time my dumbass self, who had no business being out as late as she was the night before, got up there, they (and I) were already spent. I have to hand it to Tom, who greeted me like a bud, and Ariana who deferred to girl code and told me she loved the color of my sweater (which to be fair, is a great sweater that I bought because in the course of my deep dive research for Pajiba, was recommended to me by one of the Illuminati members of the staff of People.com because Mandy Moore bought it and they wanted that sweet affiliate money, and you know they got it from me.) They must have been sick of talking (and touching) strangers, but they most definitely kept the energy up, so they get a Ramona-approved “kadooze” from me.

Knowing that they (and I) were tired AF, I figured honesty was the best policy, and I let the entire author crew know I was dying and that I just wanted to know about Midol Complete instead of singing a song I wrote for them. Tom, bless him, was the de facto book signing scribe for the group. While he was hard at work getting my book signed, Ariana and Danny talked me through the ropes of Midol Complete. Ariana warns you to start with one capsule and then work your way up to two if needed. Danny, who is super tall (and that’s coming from a tall lady) could only tell me it worked.

Then it was over. My moment with Ariana and Tom (and Danny!) had come to an end. (Scheana had left 30 minutes prior, after cutting in line to get, like, 10 books signed, and then loudly announcing to what was left of the crowd that she was leaving.)

I was free to go and live my life as I saw fit. Forever blessed in the knowledge that the people in the know gave me the secret to surviving bad decisions—their own personal hangover cure.

So, would I do it again? Absolutely, just maybe without being out until 2 am the night before.

Have my opinions on Ariana and Tom changed since I met them? Well, yes. Tom put in the f*cking work, diligently writing essays for people in their books, and Ariana abides by girl code to an extent that even I didn’t (I was too miserable to return her compliment with a compliment, and I will live with that violation for the rest of my life, but if I’m being honest, I chopped off my hair two years ago because she did, so now that’s out there as penance) so I’m a bit disappointed that because they are not agents of chaos on the show (and thus are not on my “team”) that the vibe I got off them was that if anything, they are professionals who kept themselves “on” for the entirety of the event, when I was just exhausted watching the whole thing. Which is to say, well, I’ll let Dorinda have her moment:

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I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you my bitchy thoughts but I am a gal who is a sucker for professionalism, hustle, and being a good host, which Ariana, Tom (and Danny! Do not forget Danny because if I were him, I would have started hitting myself like Marky Mark in Fear just to get some attention) had in droves. Plus, they took pity on a poor dumb broad who made bad decisions and shared their intimate knowledge and for that, I will be forever grateful. Also, they took this picture with me, which I’m pretty sure I’m going to be buried with, so deep is my love for VPR. So they have that working in their favor, too.