Playing favorites? Jax Taylor weighed in on Lisa Vanderpump’s support of Tom Sandoval during the Vanderpump Rules reunion following his affair with Raquel Leviss.
“This is what annoyed me the most. I can say this because I don’t care. Lisa annoyed me,” Taylor, 43, revealed during the Tuesday, May 30, episode of his and Brittany Cartwright’s “When Reality Hits” podcast. “I understand she has to be somewhat neutral about this.”
The former reality star, who exited the Bravo series in December 2020, claimed that Vanderpump, 62, is “not around for 99.9 percent of that show” and she just “taps in when she wants to, which is mainly the reunion.”
While watching part 1 of the season 10 reunion on May 24, Taylor confessed he was unnerved by the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star seemingly backing Sandoval, 40, after he cheated on Ariana Madix. (Us Weekly confirmed in March that the TomTom cofounder split from Madix, 37, amid his months-long affair with Leviss, 28.)
“I just felt that she was siding with Tom. She was kind of trying to be devil’s advocate a little bit,” Taylor told former costar Scheana Shay on the podcast. “I just feel like she was siding with Tom and it really annoyed me because she never did that with me when I was on the show. She went against me like crazy.”
Shay, 38, pointed out that Taylor isn’t Vanderpump’s business partner like Sandoval, who is a co-owner of TomTom. “You were just a cast member. Not saying it’s OK. I think that’s the difference,” the “Good As Gold” singer explained.
“It definitely bothered Lala [Kent]. I was like, ‘Yes, girl, yes!’ It was nice to see Lala do that. I loved it,” Taylor added of Vanderpump’s reunion comments, claiming that the former Housewife “kind of treats us like little kids sometimes. We’re grown adults. … She barely is on the show. It just irks me sometimes.”
During the reunion, Kent, 32, called Sandoval “a dangerous human being” for how he was able to lie to Madix. Vanderpump, for her part, told the Give Them Lala Beauty founder that it was “ridiculous” to say that to which the Utah native responded, “I didn’t ask for anyone else’s opinion.”
Shay, meanwhile, told the couple on their podcast that fans will see more of Vanderpump’s side during the next part of the reunion.
“She felt like it was literally everyone against him. She needed some sort of seeing the other side to keep the conversation going,” she explained. “I think there was more to it than her just trying to blindly defend him. She wasn’t all just pro Tom that day.”
Following backlash for her comments on part 1 of the reunion, Vanderpump took to social media to defend herself.
“No, I didn’t defend him … how could I??” she tweeted on Saturday, May 27, in response to allegations she was Team Sandoval. “I just didn’t want to pile on, it scares me when everyone is against one … but yes, I was very disappointed.”
The SUR owner previously told Us that she didn’t exactly go easy on Sandoval after she learned of his indiscretions. “Everybody else was chastising him. I didn’t feel like joining the pack. I mean, it seemed so kind of slanted. Everything was against him, you know?” said exclusively told Us on May 18. “I’ve known him for a long time. Of course, I’m condemning what he did. That’s why I said, ‘You’re not a bad person. You just did a bad thing.’ And my heart was always with Ariana. Maybe I didn’t kind of, you know, scream at him and lambast him, but everybody else had done that.”
The season 10 Vanderpump Rules finale continues with parts two and three on Bravo Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET.
