Better off! Vanderpump Rules alum Jax Taylor thinks Ariana Madix is doing just fine without her ex-boyfriend Tom Sandoval.
“She’s a completely different person. She seems like she’s glowing. She seems like she’s a lot happier,” Taylor, 43, said during the Tuesday, April 11, episode of Access Hollywood’s Housewives Nightcap.
Taylor noted that he and Madix, 37, have seen each other “a handful of times” since news broke last month that Sandoval, 40, cheated on his girlfriend of nine years with their costar Raquel Leviss. Us Weekly confirmed on March 3 that the duo had called it quits.
Madix broke her silence on the scandal via Instagram on March 16. “To say I have been devastated and broken is an understatement,” she wrote in the lengthy caption.
Sandoval, for his part, spoke out about the affair during an episode of the “Howie Mandel Does Stuff” podcast that aired on Tuesday. During the tell-all sit-down, the Schwartz & Sandy’s entrepreneur claimed that he and Madix’s split was “inevitable” even without his infidelity.
“Like many relationships, it felt like it became more of, like, a best friends, family [thing] — sometimes roommates,” the Missouri native told Howie Mandel. “There were a lot of ways where the relationship was just lacking the intimacy, the connection. We would travel more by ourselves than we would together. I would go to weddings by myself.”
Taylor, however, was not impressed with Sandoval’s explanation and accused him of “playing the victim” rather than taking accountability.
“There’s no justifying cheating. Take it from someone who’s been down this road. You own up to what you’ve done. Be a man,” the reality TV personality — who was caught cheating on both ex-girlfriend Stassi Schroeder and now-wife Brittany Cartwright during his tenure on Pump Rules — told Access Hollywood’s Lauren Herbert.
He continued: “He hasn’t owned up to anything, he’s justifying everything. … I mean, that’s not a man in my opinion. If you are man enough to do what you’ve done, you should be man enough to own up to what you’ve done and at least have some empathy and apologize to Ariana.”
Sandoval, for his part, has called out his costars for publicly condemning his behavior, accusing them of using the situation for their own benefit.
“Using all these things as content for their podcast. Fellow cast members are asking me all these questions, but you don’t want to know because you care about Ariana, you want to know so you can have more content for your podcast,” he told Mandel, 67. “It is f—king disgusting to me. It is so gross. You are not someone who gives a flying f—k about Ariana. You are doing this for your own personal gain.”
Taylor has spoken out against Sandoval several times since news of the cheating scandal broke. Earlier this month, he claimed that the TomTom cofounder didn’t own up to his mistakes during the Pump Rules season 10 reunion, which was filmed on March 23.
“From what I heard, he was going in on [Ariana] and deflecting. He didn’t just tuck his tail between his legs and say, ‘You know what? I screwed up. I made a bad decision and I am sorry,’” he told Cartwright, 34, during an episode of their podcast “When Reality Hits With Jax and Brittany.”
As for where Sandoval and Leviss, 28, stand today, the Tom Sandoval & the Most Extras lead singer told Mandel that they are “really good friends” and “taking a break” from their romance.
