Tom Sandoval has been lashing out over claims that he cheated on most recent girlfriend Victoria Lee Robinson. Friends have rallied around the reality star and vow to help him deal with a major smear campaign.
“He’s so sick and tired of being painted as this villain,” a source exclusively tells In Touch. “He took accountability when everything happened and admitted his part in things, but it’s been almost two years now and he feels like he’s been punished enough. He wants to move on, but no matter what he does, he’s still associated with this scandal.”
The insider continues, “When Victoria jumped to the conclusion that he was cheating again, he hit the roof because he wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was quick to apologize and make a public statement admitting she made a mistake and jumped to the wrong conclusion, but now Tom’s really spiraling. He says he feels like he’ll never be known as anything but a cheater now, no matter what he does.”
The source adds that while his friends are “all trying to be supportive,” they ultimately feel that time will be what heals his wounds.
“They’re telling him that he just needs to give it more time, that eventually people will forget, but Tom’s feeling very beat up over this,” the insider adds. “He worries that he’ll never be allowed to move on.”
Tom, 42, became one of reality TV’s most notorious villains when news broke in March 2023 that he had cheated on his former longtime girlfriend Ariana Madix with their friend and fellow Vanderpump Rules costar, Raquel Leviss. People reported that Ariana, 39, discovered a sexually e
xplicit video of Raquel, 30, on Tom’s phone when it fell from his pocket. The Dancing With the Stars alum then allegedly scrolled through Tom’s text messages and found inappropriate exchanges between him and Raquel.
On March 4, 2023, Tom broke his silence on the scandal with Raquel in a lengthy Instagram post.
“Hey, I fully understand and deserve ur anger and disappointment towards me, but please leave [Tom] Schwartz, my friends and family out of this situation…,” Tom wrote in the since-deleted post. “Schwartz specifically only found out about this very recently, and most definitely did not condone my actions. This was a very personal thing.”
Three days later, he released another statement and apologized to Ariana.
“I want to apologize to Ariana. I made mistakes, I was selfish, and made reckless decisions that hurt somebody I love,” the Bravolebrity wrote at the time. “No one deserves to feel that pain so traumatically and publicly. I can only imagine how devastating this has been for Ariana and everyone around us.”
He continued, “I never meant to disappoint so many people, including our loving families and friends. My love for Ariana was stronger than any camera could ever have captured. Some of our best times together were never filmed. The same goes for some of our biggest struggles. I wish things happened in a different order and our relationship was not severely tarnished, and that it ended with the same respect for her that it began with. I owed Ariana better.”
Tom began dating Victoria Lee, 32, in 2023, but the model sparked rumors that the Special Forces alum had cheated on her in December 2024.
“Wow… you guys were right. tiger never changes its stripes… he loves the best friends apparently,” Victoria Lee wrote in a since-deleted slide via her Instagram Stories at the time.
However, she quickly changed her tune and claimed that there had been a misunderstanding.
“I would like to sincerely apologize for my previous post,” Victoria Lee wrote in a follow up slide. “I had a true misjudgment in a situation. “Tom did not do anything.”
