A producer is spilling the tea about behind the scenes of season 10 for Vanderpump Rules!
When Scandoval broke back in March, fans began to comb through social media, interviews, and previous episodes to find any evidence of Rachel Leviss and Tom Sandoval’s months-long affair. And it wasn’t just loyal followers who went back and searched for signs. According to executive producer Natalie Neurauter, the massive scandal also prompted her team “to come back on and start searching through footage for more like clues” – even though season 10 wrapped.
Related: Ariana BLASTS Bethenny Frankel For Rachel Leviss Interview!
As producers scoured through the film, they soon discovered clues that would have given away Rachel and Sandoval’s affair if they had any hints about it. Natalie explained to TheWrap on Friday:
“We had all these puzzle pieces. And it felt like they were from different puzzles, and we didn’t know how to put them together. So it was helpful when you know the ending that you’re looking for.”
She continued, saying they previously looked at some footage of Rachel and Tom that was odd but “didn’t make a lot of sense” them before Scandoval:
“We had locked through Episode 11 and thought we had three more episodes left for the season. Everything was put together. But there was a little bit of footage that didn’t make sense to us, footage that we were mulling over at the time.”
What was that scene? Natalie revealed it was when the 28-year-old former pageant queen showed up late to a tasting Lisa Vanderpump had at SUR after she had hung out with Sandoval and Tom Schwartz while Ariana Madix was away at her grandmother’s funeral. As you may recall, no one could get their story straight at the time with Raquel saying she spent the night at his and Ariana’s home. Becoming suspicious, Lisa called the 41-year-old who claimed she “dipped out” and left early. Lisa wasn’t buying it, though, and eventually got him to confess that Rachel stayed over.
And of course, the former pageant queen later confessed that the two of them slept together while Ariana was gone for the burial. This was after Sandoval kept denying it during the season 10 reunion. Ugh. Natalie said of the footage:
“After the beach day, we had Rachel come into SUR the next day for brunch. She had stayed the night at Tom Sandoval’s house and [Tom] Schwartz was there. And that was why she was late. The three of them had hung out a lot that year so it didn’t seem strange. But the way they all spoke about it is what made it stand out to us. The fact that the guys lied about it. That didn’t make a lot of sense to us until the affair was revealed.”
For those who need a refresher, you can watch the video (below):
As for other big red flags that she noticed? Looking back, Natalie explained that “the fact that Tom didn’t want to move forward with fertilizing Ariana’s eggs” was something that did not make sense to anyone as “it was something that he had seemed really keen on in the past.” She continued:
“The second she started talking about it with him again. He was shutting it down. And that felt strange to me. And it didn’t fit with everything we had known about his desire for children in the past.”
Well, Sandoval had one foot out the door already by then. The executive producer went on to give credit to Lala Kent for seeing “things that other people miss” often – and we all know how sus she was of the cheating pair:
“And a lot of times she’ll throw out things that sounds so wild and off the wall, that we have to really wonder if she’s saying it for attention or saying it to be funny? We should never think of her that way because she sees things, especially when she’s just slightly removed from them.”
It’s wild how Rachel and Sandoval managed to fool almost everyone, even though the evidence seemed to be in plain sight. Reactions, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments below.
[Image via Bravo/YouTube]