In on the joke. Tom Schwartz laughed off comments from Vanderpump Rules fans about his support for Tom Sandoval during his cheating scandal with Raquel Leviss.
Schwartz, 40, took to social media on Saturday, April 22, to share photos of him and his dogs. “Post a pure pic with the pups please? Absolute honor to be a part of your book supporting @wagsandwalks. Featuring my two favorite creatures on planet earth,” he captioned the Instagram snap with his pets, which he shares with ex-wife Katie Maloney.
In response, a Bravo viewer poked fun at Schwartz’s rare post in the aftermath of Sandoval’s affair with Leviss, 28, — and the Minnesota native’s support of his TomTom cofounder through it all.
“I see we suddenly hired a PR team,” the person wrote, to which Schwartz clapped back, “You can tell from my unhinged interviews I don’t have a PR team Lexi 🫶.”
Us Weekly confirmed in March that Sandoval, 40, and Ariana Madix called it quits after nearly a decade of dating due to his infidelity.
The Missouri native later issued a public apology to Madix, 37, after initially only addressing the backlash his Los Angeles business received when he broke his silence.
“I want to first and foremost apologize to everyone I’ve hurt through this process. Most of all, I want to apologize to Ariana,” he wrote via Instagram at the time. “I made mistakes, I was selfish and made reckless decisions that hurt somebody I love. No one deserves to feel that pain so traumatically and publicly. I can only imagine how devastating this has been for Ariana and everyone around us. I feel really horrible about that. My biggest regret is that I dishonored Ariana. I never meant to disappoint so many people, including our loving families and friends.”
One month later, Schwartz revealed when he found out that his business partner was unfaithful to Madix.
“I learned about the affair in August. The one-night stand was in August and then it became, from my point of view, it became an emotional affair,” he said on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen on April 5. “Which is still inappropriate, but I didn’t think it was linear. [Then] in January, he came to me and told me that he was in love with Raquel.”
Schwartz, who hooked up with Leviss on screen in August 2022, raised eyebrows when he requested empathy for Sandoval. “First of all, Ariana, love you. I know you don’t love me right now, but I still love you. And also, Tom, I know the whole world hates you. But I’m not going to abandon you, old buddy. I’m not going to abandon you,” he added. “He knows he’s a monster for what he did. If you see him, maybe give him a hug. Even if he doesn’t deserve it, give him a hug. He’s down bad.”
Andy Cohen later publicly shared the advice he offered Schwartz in the wake of his controversial interview.
“Now what I told him was, ‘Here’s how this works in an interview,’ and ‘This is difficult when you’re being interviewed.’ I am a talk show host who likes to fill dead air,” the Bravo executive producer, 54, recalled on his SiriusXM show Radio Andy on April 10. “However, I am also someone who has said too much, many, many times. … When there is a topic, I am not looking to make trouble for myself over or I think maybe I want to be concise here or I don’t want to get in trouble. I don’t want to get anyone else in any trouble. I need to be careful with my words that would have been the Tom Schwartz moment on Wednesday.”
Cohen continued: “So what you do, I told Tom Schwartz is, ‘You answer the question, and then you stop talking. And when you stop talking that means I have to say something and then I will either change the subject and ask a new question because you theoretically answered the question.'”
