It’s the song that never ends. A flirty song about the unexplored potential between Tom Schwartz and Raquel Leviss. And someone just keeps adding to the chorus. Spoiler alert: there is no happy ending.
The drama has involved the entire Vanderpump Rules cast at this point. Bravo cameras were able to document how it all started between Raquel and Tom as well as Scheana Shay’s involvement by pushing the two together. All the while, Tom’s ex-wife Katie Maloney repeatedly expressed her discomfort with the situation.
But Katie’s words fell on deaf ears. On the most recent episode of Pump Rules, Raquel asked Tom to make out during a cast night out. She admitted it to the You’re Gonna Love Me podcast host, who was clearly upset by the news. Fast-forward to Scheana and Brock Davies’ wedding in August 2022, when they actually did hook up.
Since then, the cast has been snarking at each other on social media and spilling all the tea during interviews. The latest revelation comes from Raquel, who admitted she “definitely considered” getting more serious with Tom.
Raquel told Us Weekly her opinion about the Schwartz & Sandy’s co-owner. “Tom Schwartz is so kind and considerate. And he always puts himself in other people’s shoes. And that’s something I admire a lot about him.”
But she didn’t always sound so certain. After Scheana’s wedding, Raquel still wanted to take a carefree approach to dating.
“It was more of, like, a fun makeout. I feel like I’m not in the place right now to have a serious relationship — coming out of a five-year, serious relationship,” Raquel said of hooking up with Tom. “I met [ex-fiancé] James Kennedy when I was 21 and now I’m 28, so I feel like I only have two more years of my 20s left and I kind of wanna live it up.”
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Despite what happened between them, Raquel and Tom remain “really good friends.” And it’s a situation that his ex-wife takes offense to. After Raquel posted a picture of her and Tom outside Swartz & Sandy’s on Instagram, Katie called her a “desperado.”
For her part, Raquel sees nothing wrong. She explained to Us Weekly, “We’ve gotten so close through this past year. And I love him as a friend and I wanna keep this friendship. I think it’s frustrating because Schwartz and I do hang out so much. And we’ve taken so many photos together, just, like, out and about.”
The former pageant queen continued, “And the one time that I wanna post a photo with [him], it’s so polarizing and people are like, ‘You are rubbing this in Katie’s face.’ I’m like, ‘We’re not even dating, like, we’re just friends. I feel like I should be able to post a photo of my friends.’”
Raquel joked that she wasn’t camera ready for that photo, which is making the rounds on all the current celebrity news circuits. “[My motivation was] pure vanity. Just because there are so many articles now with Schwartz and I [using] that one photo that we’re standing next to each other [and] it was, like, one of those days that I didn’t put that much effort into my makeup,” Raquel explained. “And I was like, ‘Dude, we need to put out a new photo.’”
Despite her downplaying her relationship with Tom, Raquel did make out with him knowing full well it would upset Katie. “I think you’ll see as the season progresses, the things that led up to that moment. I think at Scheana’s wedding it was such a romantic atmosphere. And Schwartz and I have this connection,” Raquel said. “It’s more of a friendship now, but there definitely is like a little bit of chemistry, a little bit of flirtation and just the atmosphere was so romantic that all those things kind of just led to that.”
Just knowing that Tom and Raquel were flirting made Katie ready to wage war, so it’s not going to be a comfortable situation for the VPR cast when she finds out the pair actually did hook up.
Raquel teased the buildup of her drama with Katie. She said, “You’ll see as the season progresses, in the next episodes, she is a little bit more passive-aggressive. And you’ll kind of see how that plays out. She did forgive me, but she didn’t actually forgive me,” Raquel added.
What? An insincere resolution? Never heard of such a thing on reality TV. Maybe it would help things if Raquel stopped making public statements on the matter.
TELL US- WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE DRAMA BETWEEN RAQUEL, KATIE, AND SCHEANA? WHO IS IN THE WRONG? SHOULD RAQUEL STILL BE SPEAKING PUBLICLY ABOUT HER FRIENDSHIP WITH TOM?
[Photo Credit: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images]
