Ariana Madix is hitting out at Vanderpump Rules bosses, claiming they tried to force her hand in a scene with ex, Tom Sandoval. She said, “They did not do what they thought they were going to do.“
Vanderpump Rules has followed the explosive aftermath of Tom Sandoval’s affair with Rachel Leviss, who he secretly became intimate with while in a nine-year relationship with Ariana Madix.
Ariana Madix says producers forced her to interact with Sandoval, but it was ‘fake’
Ariana Madix has vented about feeling manipulated by Vanderpump Rules producers during the reunion, claiming they forced her hand because she didn’t want to bring up everything with her ex Sandoval on the episode.
During her appearance on the Disrespectfully podcast, she claimed bosses “didn’t do what [the cast] thought they would”.
At the reunion, Ariana and the Pump Rules cast were shown an end-of-season montage bosses “wanted them to watch together to get their real-time reactions”. But this was a spanner in the works, as she says none of the cast members knew about all the clips in the round-up.
In one clip, Tom Schwartz is heard saying, “That was a plot twist”, as Tom Sandoval laughs, “I love it. It’s good for me.”
Ariana then teared up and admitted it “hurts her feelings a lot,” to which Sandoval tried to convince her he’s “not acting.”
Now some of the dust has settled, she claims TV bosses used it to get a reaction from her and for the star to interact with Sandoval for the reunion.
She said on the podcast, “You see me mouth, ‘What the f***,’ I think to Scheana, which was literally like, ‘Oh, so this is what they’re doing?” referring to her denying Sandoval a conversation at the finale.
“Because when they emailed the episodes, they said, ‘You’ll notice that you don’t have da-da-da,’ but then they didn’t really say why, and so it felt like, honestly, it felt very pointed towards me,” Ariana added.
She was ‘forced’ to talk to Sandoval
Ariana felt as though she was forced to address Sandoval at the reunion, when she wanted to move on from her life.
“It felt like, ‘Well, we have her trapped in this room now… so we’re gonna retaliate by doing this right now,’” she remarked.
Ariana continued to say they made her “tearful” and she was “contractually obligated to be here and try to force this moment now,” adding, “And it’s like, ‘Great. I cried. You guys happy now?’”
According to Ariana, she “gave them the best ending to what that season could’ve had at that moment by leaving.” She claims she gave producers “good reality TV” rather than what they planned.
Ariana has no say on what makes it to air
Ariana reckons she brought something better than what bosses wanted. She said, “If there’s stuff that they filmed and then decided not to air, that has nothing to do with me, but I gave it all.”
“Standing there, this conversation that was like, being, this fake thing, manufactured thing that was like wanting to be had, would’ve been a boring cap to a boring a** season,” she said.
She even admits having to convince her boyfriend, Daniel Wai, to film FaceTime calls with her even though he didn’t want to, and even held back as she “didn’t show her storage unit of a bedroom” on TV.
