Bethenny Frankel Interview: Raquel Leviss Was Addicted to Love – Won’t Return to ‘Vanderpump Rules’
Raquel Leviss finally broke her silence, addressing the Vanderpump Rules scandal in an interview on Bethenny Frankel‘s podcast. She doesn’t believe she was truly in love with Tom Sandoval, but rather she had a love addiction.
Leviss also seemingly confirmed rumors that she wasn’t returning to Vanderpump Rules Season 11. She acknowledged that while some cast members and the network are “laughing” all the way to the bank thanks to Scandoval.
Raquel Leviss confused intensity for intimacy, she said on the Bethenny Frankel interview
Sandoval and Leviss believed they were in love, Leviss said. But after seeking treatment, Leviss now thinks she was addicted to love and that she and Sandoval weren’t actually in love.
“It took me a while to accept, but I learned about love addiction and it’s a real thing. It’s where you confuse intensity for intimacy,” Leviss told Frankel on her Just B with Bethenny Frankel podcast. “And those chemical changes in the brain are the same chemical changes that happen when you take drugs. So it is addictive, and it explains why I couldn’t stop seeing this person. But it also doesn’t excuse the fact that it happened. But now I know better.”
She also explained why she sought treatment after the Vanderpump Rules reunion. “Part of the reason why I wanted to take some time away is just because it was so chaotic and loud. And there was such vitriol online. But then the other part of the reason why I wanted to go to a treatment facility was to understand my behaviors,” Leviss said. “And my goal was to really get down to the bottom of, ‘OK, why am I choosing men that are unavailable? Why do I keep finding myself in unhealthy relationships? What are the things that I need to change about my behavior?’ And in knowing that I needed to make a change, I first had to know what it was that leads to those behaviors.”
Raquel Leviss says Bravo is laughing all the way to the bank
In the Bethenny Frankel interview, Raquel Leviss also acknowledged that her involvement in the Scandoval fueled the careers of many Vanderpump Rules cast members, including Ariana Madix. Madix was in a decade-long relationship with Sandoval when he cheated with Leviss.
Leviss is happy that Madix is doing well but noted how the network is “laughing” all the way to the bank, yet she’s the last person to profit from it.
“I haven’t seen a single penny,” she said during the Bethenny Frankel interview. “It’s not fair. And I feel like a toddler saying, ‘It’s not fair.’ But it really isn’t,” she said. “And I feel like I’ve been portrayed as the ultimate villain. My mistakes that I’ve made on camera live on forever. And you mentioned something about the addiction of doing reality TV and the way that they always dangle that carrot in front of you, like, ‘Well, you need to tell your side of the story otherwise it’s gonna be written for you.’ And that’s terrifying. So I almost went back, I know just because of that.”
