Tom Sandoval Suggests Rachel Leviss 'Stop Talking About Me' If She Wants to Move On: But 'Girl's Gotta Eat'

Tom Sandoval is ready for Rachel "Raquel" Leviss to get his name out of her mouth.

On the Vanderpump Rules After Show following the April 16 episode, Sandoval, 40, reflected on the controversial comments Leviss, 29, made on Bethenny Frankel’s Just B podcast in August. 

“If she actually really does wanna move on, maybe she should stop talking about me on a weekly basis. Stop talking about the show,” he said, before shifting gears and recognizing that Leviss’ continued dialogue about her affair with him — which ended his nine-year relationship with their VPR costar Ariana Madix — is somewhat of a career move.

“You know what, I take that back. Girl’s gotta eat, you know what I mean, she’s gotta make some money,” Sandoval said, to which Tom Schwartz agreed, saying that Leviss is getting her “bag,” referring to the money she’s making.

Frankel’s three-part podcast series with Leviss, Sandoval continued, was “rich and ironic,” as the former Real Housewives star was “talking about how Rachel’s getting exploited, yet she’s literally doing the same thing.”

During her appearance on the podcast, Leviss made a multitude of controversial statements, including describing her relationship with Madix, 38, as “acquaintances” rather than “friends,” claiming Sandoval was “rewarded” by VPR for the scandal that ensued from his affair and that she “needed to get caught” in order for the affair to end. 

Now, Leviss, who elected not to return for season 11 of the Bravo series, which premiered in January, has her own podcast, Rachel Goes Rogue, where she’s continued to share her thoughts on her former costars and her headline-making affair. 

In the April 16 episode of Vanderpump Rules, Sandoval reacted to one such comment Leviss made on her podcast, when she said she “wasn’t in love” with him during their months-long affair.

He told Schwartz that he hoped “one day that she would see the work that I'd done myself and would appreciate it.” He then got emotional as he continued, “I don't understand how she said I was anything but somebody who just loved and cared about her, like, I'll do anything for her.”

“I wasn't fully ready to give up hope until I heard it from her own lips and now I have,” he said in a confessional. "To go through all that and not even give it a shot, like what was it all for?”

The Schwartz & Sandy’s co-owner said that Leviss’ comments were “disrespectful” as he claimed he never got any “closure” from their relationship. “She used me and now is throwing me away.”

His costar James Kennedy then suggested that the pair were “never in love,” but rather "it was a f--- fest for six months,” to which Sandoval rebutted:  “I would literally go over to her house and would spend like five, six hours together. If we had sex, it would be for a little bit, we would talk the whole time.” 

Leviss, though, is enjoying the freedom her podcast has granted her. “I have so much more control when it’s my own podcast," she told PEOPLE at the 2024 iHeart Radio Music Awards earlier this month.

“When you’re on a reality TV show, you’re just living your life and you don’t know what they’re going to air, or how they’re going to edit you to look a certain way," she explained. "So with my own podcast, I’m able to speak freely — I know what I’m going to say won’t be edited out, and I just have a voice."

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Vanderpump Rules airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.