Jax Taylor & Brittany Cartwright on Whether Tom Sandoval & Raquel Leviss Have a Future Together (Exclusive)

Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright may have left “Vanderpump Rules” behind, but they have a lot to say about “Scandoval.”

On Thursday, “Extra’s” Rachel Lindsay spoke with Jax and Brittany about the cheating scandal rocking the reality show world, as well as their new podcast “When Reality Hits.”

Earlier this month, news broke about Raquel Leviss’ affair with Tom Sandoval, who was dating Ariana Madix.

Jax and Brittany are on team Ariana. He said, “I’m just happy for her. I feel like, yes, this is an awful, awful situation, but I feel like she’s just going to come out on top… She’s going to thrive and she’s going to finally, I feel like, just kind of be who she wants to be and just enjoy her life.”

Brittany added, “She’s definitely going to shine.”

Taylor went on, “I think this is a blessing in disguise.”

Jax has been in touch with Ariana. He shared, “I talked to her this morning. I texted her this morning and I said, you know, ‘Good luck today’ because they’re having the reunion today. And she responded, ‘Thank you so much. That means so much to me.’”

Brittany chimed in, “I love that you two might actually become, like, friends after this.”

While they butted heads in the past, Jax praised Ariana for her strength, saying, “She’s a great person. She’s very strong. She’s very independent. And I respect that.”

If the couple had Ariana on their podcast, Brittany would definitely ask how she’s doing. She explained, “I feel like it needs to be asked just to make sure that she’s doing okay. Because I know going through something like this so publicly is so hard.”

While Jax didn’t know about Tom and Raquel, he was aware of Sandoval’s past cheating. So does he feel vindicated?

Taylor answered, “Listen, we’ve been in this situation, my wife and I, and I know firsthand what it feels like, and I know what she went through. So I’m not going to sit there and be like, ‘I told you so.’ I hope people just listen to me a little bit more and maybe believe me from now on when I say something because I know sometimes people don’t like to believe everything I say. But, you know, I want the best for her, you know. I do. I hope the best for her. And I hope we can move past this and hope she moves past this.”

Cartwright added, “We never would have imagined that it was going to be like this whole Raquel, like, relationship thing. I would have never thought that even though he knew, like, in the past that he had done things… I would never have expected that.”

Jax elaborated, “I’ve known 100% for a fact [Tom] has cheated before. I know that. But I never knew it would be Raquel. No, Raquel, that’s a shocker to me.”

He argued, “I feel like Tom can control [Raquel]… I’ve been saying this a lot, and I feel like that’s kind of why he kind of went that way. She’s just really easily manipulated. I think she’s co-dependent and think, you know, Tom could take advantage of that… He wasn’t getting that with Ariana.”

As for how Tom and Raquel’s affair was different from their own experience, Jax said, “There’s a full relationship going on behind the relationship.”

Could Tom and Raquel have a future together?

Brittany responded, “I don’t know. Because I don’t know what they thought was going to happen… Do they think that this could just keep going on behind Ariana’s back for a long time? I mean, seven months is a long time. I just don’t know if it will actually work. I don’t know if, like, they’re going to feel like that they have to make it work now because it’s gotten so public. Like, I don’t know. I can’t see them together at all because I’m just so used to Tom and Ariana together. So it’s just even weird for me to even think about.”

Jax shared his two cents, saying, “I think they both have some inner demons. I think there’s some inner demons going on. I don’t think Tom has even been faithful to Raquel, to be honest.”

As for Tom and Raquel being on the next season of “Vanderpump Rules,” Brittany said, “I don’t know how that will work. Don’t even know if everyone will even talk to them. You know, like, it’s gotten so bad that, you know, everybody’s going to have to pick a side.”

Jax revealed, “I even got producers reaching out to me like, ‘Jax, would you even talk to Tom?’… because no one will talk to him.”

When asked if they would ever consider returning to the show to film a scene with Tom, Ariana, or Raquel, Brittany said it would depend on the circumstances. She explained, “I feel like, you know, if it was something that was like not going to hurt anything… We have a family to worry about too. So it’s like, it just depends on what it was going to be like.”

Jax pointed out, “I don’t want to just jump in just to jump in because of everything that’s going on. I don’t want to do that. That’s not right. It’s not fair. There’s enough going on.”

Jax has spoken to Tom Schwartz. He noted, “Here’s the thing you’ve got to understand. He’s friends with both of them, and they put him in a really crappy situation… He’s friends with Ariana. I mean, he was. She was the best man in his wedding. Groomsmen or whatever you want to call it. And Tom’s his friend, his business partner. I know he knew for a while. I don’t know how long…. I know that he knew.”

He went on, “I know also that he told Tom, ‘Listen, you need to come clean with this.’ I know, he told me he said that. And I think that’s as far as it went… They’re both grown men. They make their own decisions. But I think Sandoval put Schwartz in a really, really bad situation… I feel bad for Schwartz because he’s taken the brunt of this.”

Jax and Brittany plan to discuss reality TV on their podcast “When Reality Hits.” Brittany said, “Obviously we’re going to be talking a lot about reality TV stuff, behind-the-scenes stuff. You know all about that… There’s so much that people don’t understand about reality TV as well, so we’re going to, like, give our view on things, on us, on the show, other things about the show, like, just so many different things.”

She continued, “And we’re gonna talk about, like, how we met, our life story, how things have been since we stopped filming ‘Vanderpump Rules.’ I mean, so much has changed in our lives, like, we have a baby now.”

Jax teased, “We’re going to have villains that are on the show. I want villains to be on the show… to interview other villains because I feel like a lot of us are misunderstood… When you get out of [a] show… you get pigeonholed in some kind of certain things and sometimes you don’t get to tell who you really are… I want to interview other villains, you know, [and] want to say, ‘Hey, why are you a villain?’ Basically, you know, because it’s tough to be a villain.”