Is Tom Sandoval of ‘Vanderpump Rules’ the Most Hated Man in America?

Valley Village is a Los Angeles neighborhood just across the freeway from Studio City, near the southern edge of the area locally referred to with both affection and derision as the Valley. There, at the end of a quiet, leafy street of ranch-style homes stands what real estate agents have come to describe as a “modern farmhouse,” which its current occupant, the reality-TV star Tom Sandoval, has outfitted with landscaping lights that rotate in a spectrum of colors, mimicking the dance floor of a nightclub. The home is both his private residence and an occasional TV set for the Bravo reality show “Vanderpump Rules.” After a series of events that came to be known as “Scandoval,” paparazzi had been camped outside, but by the new year it was just one or two guys, and now they have mostly gone, too.

“Scandoval” is the nickname for Sandoval’s affair with another cast member, which he had behind the backs of the show’s producers and his girlfriend of nine years. This wouldn’t be interesting or noteworthy except that in 2023, after being on the air for 10 seasons, “Vanderpump” was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding unstructured reality program, an honor that has never been bestowed on any of the network’s “Housewives” shows. It also became, by a key metric, the most-watched cable series in the advertiser-beloved demographic of 18-to-49-year-olds and brought in over 12.2 million viewers. This happened last spring, when Hollywood’s TV writers went on strike and cable TV was declared dead and our culture had already become so fractured that it was rare for anything — let alone an episode of television — to become a national event. And yet you probably heard about “Scandoval” even if you couldn’t care less about who these people are, exactly.

The story has continued offscreen. After the season aired, Raquel Leviss, with whom Sandoval had the affair, entered a mental-health facility in Arizona and started going by a different name. Ariana Madix, Sandoval’s now-ex-girlfriend, garnered so much national sympathy that she has had the most prosperous year of her career. In addition to being invited to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and to compete on “Dancing With the Stars,” she landed ads with Duracell batteries, Bic razors, Uber Eats and Lay’s chips, as well as a starring role in “Chicago” on Broadway this winter. Sandoval, meanwhile, became the most reviled man in America and the butt of a million jokes. Jennifer Lawrence made fun of his skin. Amy Schumer called him a narcissist. One of the hosts of “The View” called him “the Donald Trump of ex-boyfriends.” And Sandoval has just been here, in the Valley, trying to process it all. “I feel like I got more hate than Danny Masterson,” he told me, “and he’s a convicted rapist.”

When I arrived at his house late last year, Sandoval, who is 41, had just finished working out. He wore a black muscle shirt and a wide headband. His assistant, Miles, was at the dining-room table sorting through Sandoval’s utility bills on two laptops. “He basically does anything I don’t personally have to do,” Sandoval explained. We were also joined by Rylie, who’s on Sandoval’s new publicity team, which has a background in crisis P.R. I assumed Rylie would be an impediment, but my fears were put to rest when she didn’t flinch at the Danny Masterson comment. Rylie is 23, has watched “Vanderpump” since she was in middle school and seemed as interested in Sandoval’s life as I was. When Sandoval described how, despite their gnarly, nationally televised split, he and Madix have continued living together, sequestered in separate parts of the five-bedroom home and communicating via assistants, Rylie was curious to hear more. “So all of her stuff is still here?” Rylie asked.

Sandoval wasn’t sure, but he thought Madix might have finally rented a place. “She took the dog and the cat, and I know she wouldn’t do that if she was staying somewhere temporary,” he said. Sandoval wanted to buy out her share of the home, but interest rates are so crazy right now. He was considering getting a roommate to help with the mortgage. At least he thought Madix was finally open to the idea. “It took her a while to not be spiteful about the house,” he said. (A month after we met, Madix sued Sandoval in Los Angeles County to force him to sell the home and divide the proceeds.)