Kristen Doute revealed that former and current Vanderpump Rules stars — including Ariana Madix — reached out to Tom Sandoval when he dealt with suicidal ideation.
During the Friday, February 16, episode of her “Sex, Love and What Else Matters” podcast, Doute, 41, reacted to a recent episode of Vanderpump Rules where Sandoval, 41, revealed he struggled with his mental health following his high-profile split from Madix, 38.
“Of course when Tom brings up something that is very detrimental regarding suicidal thoughts — that is terrifying. I don’t want to hear that from anyone. And I remember hearing about this back in the Scandoval time in the spring of last year,” she recalled. “Not only did Scheana [Shay] reach out to him as she said she did — heartfelt, 100 percent — I too reached out to him. Ariana reached out to him.”
Doute recalled getting in contact with Madix, adding, “A lot of us texted Ariana and said, ‘You realize we need to reach out to him, we’ve heard some rumors.’ This wasn’t a secret. We heard some scary things that he was thinking about. He’s also not the only one.”
Sandoval and Madix called it quits in March 2023 after nine years of dating due to his affair with their costar Rachel “Raquel” Leviss. Their breakup resulted in most of the Vanderpump Rules cast siding with Madix while Sandoval remained on the outs with the group. (Leviss, 29, checked herself into a mental health facility before exiting the Bravo series.)
While addressing the aftermath, Sandoval revealed to Lisa Vanderpump how much the scandal affected him.
“If I f–king say I am sorry and I cry then it is [called] crocodile tears. I battled with suicide [thoughts]. Don’t tell me what I felt,” he said on the Tuesday, February 13, episode of VPR. “I was hanging on by a thread. The walls start closing and you can’t see past the hurt and the pain. You can’t dream about better days. I was getting to the point where I was like, ‘What is the f–king point?”
In response, Vanderpump, 63, got upset with Sandoval for not letting her know.
“I reached out to you, and you know how I feel about that. Losing my brother [in 2018] — I understand you might have felt like that. And you promised me,” she said before elaborating in a confessional. “Tom Sandoval assured me after the reunion when I called him from the car on the way home. I said, ‘You promise me Tom that if you ever have any thoughts like that …’ And he said, ‘I am not that person. I wouldn’t do that.’ So to hear him say he had those thoughts and he didn’t call me? That scares me the f–ing daylights out of me.”
Sandoval addressed the emotional conversation between him and Vanderpump on his “Everybody Loves Tom” podcast, sharing on Thursday, February 15, “I don’t remember everything that was said, but that was close to a two-hour conversation edited to three to five minutes.”
Sandoval recalled feeling really frustrated by his strained friendships.
“It’s just tough. You don’t feel heard. You feel attacked. You feel like you can’t do anything right, no matter what you do. I got people left and right trying to pull my friends away from me,” he noted. “I just felt everybody just went so f–king far with it, so far. And I understand that it was big news, but at a certain point, stop ridiculing [Tom] Schwartz for being my friend.”
He concluded: “I’m still a person. I’m not [the villain] Negan from The Walking Dead. I’m not a character. This is real life. Like I have to move on.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
