Tom Sandoval Recalls First Kiss with Raquel Leviss: ‘It Was Magnetic’

“Vanderpump Rules” star Tom Sandoval is telling all!

During his appearance on the “Howie Mandel Does Stuff” podcast, Sandoval opened up about all things Raquel Leviss, including their first kiss.

Tom revealed that they shared a kiss at his house in the summer of 2022, before Scheana Shay and Brock Davies’ wedding.

He said, “We just kissed. It was magnetic… I felt something that I hadn’t felt in so long, emotionally.”

Tom then decided to go to therapy after the kiss “to try and figure out what the hell I’m gonna do.” He explained, “The feelings were something very, very strong. Those feelings that I had started to take over, in a sense. Logic went out the window. Because I wasn’t experiencing that [with Ariana] — I hadn’t experienced that [before].”

While he said his relationship with Raquel was “healthy,” he admitted that the “lying” and “sneaking around” was “very unhealthy.” He went on, “Time was always fleeting every time we were around each other. It felt like it could be the last time we see each other. It just made us both, like, obsessive over, like, trying to see each other.”

During the interview, Sandoval revealed that he had tried to end his relationship with Ariana Madix a few times.

He shared, “I made it pretty clear in therapy that I wanted to, like, take the steps to break up. And then actually, Ariana kind of just started really started fighting for it and I felt so, so bad about it because she was being so unbelievably sweet and amazing.”

According to Sandoval, he finally pulled the plug on their relationship in February, weeks before Scandoval made the headlines! He said, “I actually did break up with her on Valentine’s Day.”

Tom claimed that Ariana was “completely in denial” about their split. He elaborated, “She’s like, ‘I’m, like, not letting you leave me. You’re gonna have to force me out of this relationship… If you break up with me, you will effectively be ending my life.’”

He emphasized, “We were broken up. She knew we were broken up. We didn’t tell anybody, but she knew.”

In earlier March, news broke about Tom and Ariana’s split.

Sandoval noted that there was trouble in paradise for quite some time with Ariana. Along with saying that he became “distant” with Ariana, he commented, “Like many relationships, it felt like it became more of like a best friends, family [thing] — sometimes roommates. There were a lot of ways where the relationship was just lacking the intimacy, the connection. We would travel more by ourselves than we would together. I would go to weddings by myself.”

Before they called it quits, they even tried couples’ therapy.

Despite their breakup, Tom insisted, “I love Ariana. I still love Ariana and I care about her very much so, but we for a while had been sort of having our own lives. We were together for nine years. We built a business and we had a house together. We were a brand.”

As for where he stands with Raquel today, Tom said, "We're really good friends. We're not putting any label on it."