Ariana Madix and Scheana Shay will likely have some (new) choice words for Raquel Leviss if they tune into her chat with Bethenny Frankel.
Leviss’ appearance on “ReWives” marked her first interview after completing 90 days of mental health treatment amid the backlash of her affair with Madix’s then-boyfriend, Tom Sandoval. During part one of the podcast, which dropped on Wednesday, August 16, Frankel asked Leviss about how the world “thinks [she] slept with [her] best friend’s boyfriend of 10 years.”
“That is the narrative that is being written for me,” Leviss responded. “It is more salacious that way. Ariana and I were not best friends. We were acquaintances who became friends through the show. She’s always been somebody who’s been very sweet to me. She would stand up for me and encourage me to pursue whatever I was, I don’t know … pursuing. And that was all great — but we never had, like, a deep conversation that I would have with a best friend.”
While Leviss said it’s “painful to think” that she “hurt” Madix by having a months-long relationship with Sandoval, she insisted that she wasn’t trying to be “a malicious person.”
“I just got wrapped up in this and wasn’t thinking clearly. But we were not best friends,” she continued. “The alliances — I called these people my friends because I really did believe that they were my friends.”
Leviss — who referred to Madix as her “true” friend on the “Chicks in the Office” podcast just one day before Scandoval broke in March — alleged that she “never” saw Madix when cameras weren’t rolling.
“Not just us together — no,” Leviss said. “[If we were best friends], we would, I don’t know, go out to dinner just the two of you or shopping or lunch.”
When asked about how the world has rallied around Madix, who ended things with Sandoval for good after nine years together in light of the scandal, Leviss told Frankel she is torn.
“Part of me says, ‘Good for you because take advantage of these opportunities while they come your way.’ But it is hurtful to me just to think that — my nature is very kind and forgiving and understanding of other people. So the concept of me being the ultimate reality TV villain just blows my mind,” she said. “And the way that she spoke to me at the reunion, I feel like it was uncalled for.”
Leviss did admit that Shay “was one of my best friends,” but accused her costar of changing the narrative around their friendship.
“She offered her apartment to me to stay in while I was figuring out my next moves. After breaking up with James [Kennedy], she kept this apartment in L.A. but wasn’t living in it ’cause she was living down in San Diego, but she started creating this narrative that she was the sister I never had and like a mother to me,” Leviss told Frankel. “And that she gave me a place to live when nobody else would, you know, put me up anywhere. [She said] that I didn’t pay rent, which is not true. I did pay rent and I also cat sat for her cat who was pumped with Mercury for treatment. She couldn’t be near the cat because she was breast-feeding her daughter. And I also did her podcasts, and she said the one podcast that I did with her talking about my breakup with James was the No. 1 most listened to podcast.”
Leviss concluded, “It’s just unfortunate that she’s trying to create this narrative that I’ve taken advantage of her when I feel like I did contribute in a way.”
