“This isn’t reinvention, it’s regression—with glitter.”
Tom Sandoval’s attempt at a televised redemption arc may have just backfired in the most theatrical way possible. Dressed head-to-toe in black mesh, excessive chains, smudged eyeliner, and enough hair gel to rival a 2006 Fall Out Boy concert, the Vanderpump Rules villain took the stage on America’s Got Talent looking less like a man reinventing himself — and more like a divorced dad crashing his daughter’s high school talent show.
The look, which Sandoval clearly intended as edgy and expressive, was immediately dragged across the internet. Viewers dubbed it “emo cosplay of a midlife crisis,” accusing the 41-year-old reality star of mistaking heavy eyeliner and dramatic lighting for actual accountability.
“He thinks if he dresses like he’s sad enough, we’ll forget he cheated,” one fan wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “It’s like Hot Topic threw up on a narcissist.”
Sandoval’s performance of Take On Me — paired with his self-proclaimed title as “the most hated man in America” — only added fuel to the fire. The entire act was drenched in melodrama, from the strained vocals to the pouty stares, all choreographed to present him as the tragic antihero of a scandal he himself created. The message was clear: feel sorry for me, not mad at me.
But audiences weren’t buying it.
“It’s not the eyeliner that bothers me,” another user commented. “It’s the fact that he’s weaponizing aesthetic as a shortcut to redemption. That’s not growth, that’s distraction.”
Critics were quick to point out the lack of substance beneath the theatrics. At no point in his intro or performance did Sandoval acknowledge the real impact of the cheating scandal that torched his long-term relationship with Ariana Madix and triggered a Bravo-wide firestorm. Instead, he leaned heavily into his pain, his suffering, and his road to self-expression — bypassing entirely the harm he caused others.
One Bravo fan account summed it up: “He skipped the apology phase and jumped straight to the eyeliner tour.”
Industry insiders say the styling and creative direction for the AGT performance was entirely Sandoval’s idea. “He wanted a tortured rockstar aesthetic,” one NBC source told DailyMail+. “He thought it would show a different side of him — raw, emotional, real. But it just came off as forced.”
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The backlash has been swift and merciless. Clips of the performance have flooded TikTok and Instagram, with users adding sarcastic captions like “When your eyeliner is darker than your soul” and “Live, Laugh, Lip Sync Regret.”
Perhaps most telling, however, was the reaction backstage. While judges gave polite applause, insiders report the atmosphere behind the scenes was “awkward at best.” “No one really knew how to respond,” the source continued. “It felt like a man trying to rebrand without ever admitting why he needed to in the first place.”
Even among his former Vanderpump Rules castmates, there’s little support. One insider claims that while Lisa Vanderpump “wished him well privately,” she also warned him that “trying to sing your way out of bad press rarely works unless you’re Beyoncé.”
Sandoval, for his part, has remained publicly unfazed by the criticism. In a post on Instagram following the airing, he wrote, “Thank you for letting me express my heart.” But fans weren’t convinced.
“This wasn’t heart,” one comment read. “This was hair product and hubris.”
At the end of the day, Sandoval may believe the eyeliner masks the scandal — that performing through pain is proof of growth. But for a growing number of viewers, the message is loud and clear:
You can dress like a rockstar, cry like a victim, and sing like you mean it — but if you never say sorry, no one’s clapping for you.
