Rachel “Raquel” Leviss was brutally honest about the hardest parts of watching season 11 of Vanderpump Rules.
While wrapping up the Thursday, February 1, episode of her “Rachel Goes Rogue” podcast, Leviss, 29, reflected on the positive and negative aspects of the season 11 premiere.
“When I watch it, I’m just happy that I’m not in it. I’m so happy that I’ve been able to find more peace in my life and my day to day is stable” she explained. “I don’t have to worry about things that are coming up this season. Well that’s not true, I do worry about things that are going to come up this season. But I’m just happy that I’m not in it like I used to be.”
Leviss noted it was most difficult to see Scheana Shay and Ariana Madix.
“It is hard seeing Scheana and Ariana, two people that I did call friends. I think I have a lot more resentment towards Scheana so I think the thorn for me is just seeing Scheana’s face,” she admitted. “I’m working through that and I think with time and more therapy and just more I don’t know. I don’t wanna always feel that way when I look at her but I guess right now it’s just not an enjoyable thing for me.”
Leviss and Shay, 38, were very close before news broke in March 2023 about Tom Sandoval‘s affair with Leviss, which led to his split from Madix, 38.
Shortly after Scandoval broke, Leviss filed an order of protection after accusing Shay of punching her when she heard about the affair. As a result, the pair were unable to tape the reunion together and instead swapped places while production kept them 100 yards away from each other throughout the day. The temporary restraining order was subsequently dropped.
Leviss has since downplayed her individual friendships with Shay and Madix.
“That is the narrative that is being written for me,” she explained on the “ReWives” podcast in August 2023. “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.”
Despite referring to Shay as one of her best friends, Leviss questioned her intentions.
“[Scheana] offered her apartment to me to stay in while I was figuring out my next moves. After [I broke 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 continued at the time. “And that she gave me a place to live when nobody else would … 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.”
She 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.”
That same month, Shay laughed off Leviss’ comments on her “Scheananigans” podcast, saying, “Up until [Raquel’s podcast appearance], I still haven’t blocked her or anything like that. I had been waiting to hear from her because I felt like it would have been a much different conversation now after her getting out of this facility. I absolutely would have heard her out. But now that podcast was the nail in the coffin.”
