Tom Sandoval didn’t exactly receive a warm welcome at BravoCon. The Vanderpump Rules star at the center of Scandoval got booed when he made his entrance at the Las Vegas event on Friday, and reacted to the audience’s ire in an interview with ET’s Brice Sander.
“So warm and fuzzy inside,” Sandoval sarcastically told ET of how hearing the audience’s boos made him feel. “When you feel like people hate your existence, when some guy gets on stage and goes, ‘So Tom, why would you come here? Literally nobody wants you here. Nobody likes you.’ That was a little tough.”
Tom Schwartz, Sandoval’s co-star and business partner, tried to make his friend feel better, remarking, “Maybe they were using some sort of reverse psychology. Don’t you remember back in the day, like, in middle school when you liked someone and you were sort of mean to them?”
“I don’t think so,” Sandoval responded.
In a separate interview with ET, Lisa Vanderpump reacted to the audiences negative response to her co-star.
“The fans have an opinion. I understand that. The fans, to me, their support over the years has been extraordinary. But… let’s not just think of them like television characters, they’re also people,” she said. “… He’s still a human. He’s a human being with feelings. I think he’s being remarkably resilient, but this season of Vanderpump Rules, you’re not always gonna see that resilience. You’re gonna see a lot of vulnerability and that’s kind of hard to watch.”
Sandoval became the villain of the reality show after his affair with Rachel Leviss ended his nearly decade-long romance with Ariana Madix, a situation he said he’s learned and grown from.
“I haven’t drank. I’m trying to go through all of these times in my life without drinking. I stopped smoking cigarettes. I’m not smoking weed either. I’m not just getting high every day. I’m just sort of taking things in with a clear head,” Sandoval told ET of the changes he’s made following the controversy.
“Things like this really get you to appreciate the small things, like walking into a room and somebody is smiling at you saying hi,” he added. “Taking the time to really like appreciate the little subtleties in life that sometimes you take for granted, they’re really important, more important than you think.”
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The interview came the same day that Bravo released the explosive first footage of Vanderpump Rules’ 11th season, which will focus on the fallout of Sandoval when it premieres in January.
“It was raw. It was honestly heartfelt, one of the most passionate seasons for me at least,” Schwartz said. “The stakes were very high. It sounds cliché, but the stakes were very high… This is the new normal now.”
Season 11 won’t be all about Scandoval, though, Schwartz told ET.
“As a group we’ve known each other for a long time. We’re like a band. We make up, we break up, we get back together, we bang each other sometimes,” he said. “… It wasn’t perfect, [but] by the end I kind of feel like we got the band back together.”
“A little,” Sandoval acquiesced, before Schwartz expanded on his thought, saying, “We had a transformative trip… After that it felt like things got a little lighter. There was more levity and I love levity… I think it’s gonna be really fun for the audience to watch us as a group and the chasm in the group sort of try to just bring ourselves back together.”
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Season 11 of Vanderpump Rules will premiere in January on Bravo.
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