Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Emma Chance | TV | July 17, 2023
The confusion has been swirling around Raquel Leviss’s return to Vanderpump Rules. Viewers think she should cut her losses and disappear. She has no friends now, so what would her storyline be? Going to Tom Sandoval’s shows when no one else wants to?
It’s all moot, because apparently she’s contractually obligated to return for season 11. Oh, and she’s going by Rachel now. Again.
Leviss went into treatment in late March for “mental health and trauma therapy,” following the final reunion episode of Vanderpump in which she confessed that her affair with Tom Sandoval was ongoing and not a one-off, as Sandoval had previously claimed.
Before she did, though, she posted an apology on Instagram, in which she explained she was “speaking to a counselor” and learning about her “patterns of codependency and addiction to being and feeling loved.”
It was her counselors who encouraged her to take back her given name, Rachel, after viewers of the show started using it against her. The haters will back off if she reclaims it, the theory goes.
As for the contract, she is renegotiating the terms with Bravo, hoping for a pay raise.
Listen, this is a young woman who came to fame as the girlfriend of a reality star, and by the time that relationship ended, she was a reality star herself, but she was on the outskirts of a very complicated group of reality stars. Chaos ensued. Mistakes were made. But why does she get canceled and Tom Sandoval gets to keep singing with his cover band and romping around Los Angeles like nothing happened? This isn’t even the first cheating scandal he’s been involved in, and no one ever called for him to leave the show. In fact, no one is calling for it now.
This is reality TV, I’m not tuning in to see Ariana and Katie open a brightly lit sandwich shop. You know what would be entertaining? If Rachel returned and played the woman scorned. She already aired Tom’s dirty laundry at the reunion, so the relationship bridge has burned. Why not burn his whole house down while you’re at it?
