Pump Rules' Scheana Shares Emmys-Related Theory on Raquel Breaking Silence
Scheana Shay has one question about Raquel Leviss‘ tell-all interview with Bethenny Frankel — and it has to do with timing.
During the Friday, September 1, episode of her “Scheananigans” podcast, Shay, 37, claimed that Leviss, 28, had no obvious reason to finally address the aftermath of her affair with Tom Sandoval.
“That is what is so weird. Because you’re not coming back to the show, you want to change your name, you don’t want to be in the spotlight, you don’t want to come back to L.A., you don’t want to be a part of this friend group and you don’t want to speak to Tom Sandoval anymore,” Shay noted.
Shay went on to theorize that perhaps there was something more to it than that, adding, “But what is also interesting that I notice — and this could be a total weird coincidence — but the day the interview came out [there was] Emmy voting the next day. I don’t know that they were trying to hurt something with Vanderpump Rules but that was just a weird coincidence as well.”
Scandoval Success! How 'Pump Rules' Cast Financially Benefited From Affair
Tom Sandoval and Raquel Leviss‘ cheating scandal came with an unexpected paycheck for several Vanderpump Rules stars. When the Bravo series kicked off season 10 in February 2023, the topic on everyone’s mind was Tom Schwartz‘s hookup with Leviss amid his divorce from Katie Maloney. One month later, Us Weekly confirmed that Sandoval and Ariana […]
Vanderpump Rules received two Emmy nominations — Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program and Outstanding Picture Editing for an Unstructured Reality Program — in July. The award nods came four months after the hit Bravo series made headlines due to Leviss and Sandoval’s affair.
Us Weekly confirmed in March that Sandoval’s nearly decade-long relationship with Ariana Madix came to an end after she learned about his infidelity. The trio hashed out their issues during the season 10 reunion, which aired three months later. Leviss subsequently checked herself into a mental health facility and confirmed last month that she would not be filming season 11 of Vanderpump Rules.
“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. The way that [Ariana] spoke to me at the reunion, I feel like it was uncalled for,” Leviss said on the “ReWives” podcast in August before commenting on how she “almost went back” but ultimately decided to move on.
During the candid conversation, Leviss also downplayed her individual friendships with Shay and Madix, 38.
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Raise your glass! Since Vanderpump Rules premiered on Bravo in 2013, viewers have had a front row seat to some of the biggest reality TV fights and feuds. Kristen Doute and Tom Sandoval’s tumultuous relationship was a topic of discussion during the first two seasons. As the pair tried to work out their issues, rumors […]
“That is the narrative that is being written for me,” she explained. “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.”
Leviss referred to Shay as one of her best friends but then questioned the podcast host’s intentions.
(Leviss
“[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. “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.”
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Romantic relationships aren’t the only ones ever-changing at SUR. Scheana Shay and Raquel Leviss bonded when the latter joined the cast of Vanderpump Rules amid her romance with James Kennedy, but the two women’s friendship took a turn amid Scandoval. Shay, an OG on the Bravo series, is known to embrace a new cast member […]
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.”
Shay, for her part, laughed off Leviss’ comments during Friday’s podcast episode, 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.”
