Rachel Leviss started her podcasting career off this week with a bang.
By delving into the first time she banged Tom Sandoval.
Just ahead of Vanderpump Rules Season 11 — a series of episodes on which Leviss has chosen NOT to appear — the former Bravo personality broadcast the first episode of Rachel Goes Rogue on Monday.
“I don’t want to be with Tom and I’ve made the decision to cut Tom out of my life,” Leviss told listeners of why she turned down Season 11.
“Going back to do the show, it would force me to interact with him … and I know I’m on the outskirts with all the other cast, so I wouldn’t get my story across.”
Leviss is referring here to Tom Sandoval, of course, with whom she had a very sordid and well-publicized affair last year.
The two slept together for many months while Sandoval was dating fellow Vanderpump Rules co-star, Ariana Madix; the affair was exposed after Madix found a FaceTime video from her alleged friend on Sandoval’s phone.
“I had become the worst version of myself through the 7 months of secrecy, deception and going along with these lies that ate me up,” Leviss said on her podcast of the relationship.
“And part of that is my fault … and it was a really bad choice.
“But I was still in relationship with Tom, we were talking on the phone when I went in for treatment and in those months I was in there, I was debating whether or not to do the show.”
Indeed, in April, Leviss checked into rehab in order to deal with mental health issues.
In the end, Leviss said she felt she was watching “the worst version” of herself when revisiting Season 10 and now believes she “made the right decision by leaving.”
Elsewhere, in an especially revealing segment of the podcast, Leviss opened up about the first time she slept with Sandoval.
She said the two went out for drinks at The Abbey in West Hollywood and then she offered to give him a ride home.
Once there, he invited her inside for a drink — while Ariana Madix slept upstairs.
However, Sandoval ended up being locked out of the house, so they went around to the back of the house to try and find another way in.
“We go in the back, and the sliding door isn’t unlocked, so he was like, ‘Well, we’ve got the fire pit here,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, the fire pit’s cool, we can just keep talking,’” Leviss recalled.
“We got the fire pit going, we’re chatting, and then he goes, ‘You know what the best thing about this pool is? That it’s heated.’”
Naturally, the friends then jumped in.
“I took my jeans off, and I had this corset top on, so I left that on, and I was in my underwear, and I went in his pool,” Leviss said.
Sandoval was in his boxers. He swam toward her, Rachel now says. And then…
He “looked at me a certain way and then he grabbed me, spun me and kissed me and I was like surprised but like happy. Ugh, so bad, so embarrassing.”
Continued Leviss on this subject:
“I knew it was wrong, Tom knew it was wrong. Right after Tom kissed me, he like sat on the stair of the pool and he was like, hands on his face, his mind must have been running a million miles a minute, contemplating what to do.”
And yet… the pair kept hooking up for a very long time.
According to Leviss, she said she should leave and started to get dressed, before he told her to sit down while he thought things over.
Sandoval supposedly told Rachel he really liked her… the ended up talking more in the car… and then had sex inside of it.
When asked by her cohosts whether they did “everything” in this car, Leviss responded by saying, “It was very bad.”
Sandoval has trashed Leviss on many occasions since they split, and Leviss said on her podcast that she is extremely over her ex.
She said hearing him speak on a recent podcast interview made her feel like she “was going to throw up.”
She added, “His voice repulsed me. And I’m like, ‘Okay, this is a good sign.’”
As for why she’s now hosting her own podcast?
“I would rather speak my truth and share my story and be ridiculed for it than sit idly by and watch this whole season pan out and not get my story across. That’s why I’m doing my podcast. I’m really scared, I’m really nervous.”