Vanderpump Rules’ Tom Sandoval Still Doesn’t Understand Why His Affair Was “Such a Big Deal” – E! Online

Tom Sandoval is still SUR-prised how much public attention his months-long affair with costar Rachel “Raquel” Leviss got.

The Vanderpump Rules star admitted he didn’t realize the cheating scandal, which ended his nine-year romance with Ariana Madix in March, would have a ripple effect beyond the Bravo-verse.

“It was a pretty juicy f–king scandal,” Sandoval told his fellow celebrity competitors of the controversy in a sneak peek at the Oct. 16 episode of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, adding, “If you would have opened up Instagram, you would have seen me and Ariana every day.”

The 41-year-old noted that after Scandoval “blew up,” he received a lot of messages from critics that were “paragraphs of just like vicious, so visceral, like, hatred.”

When speed skater Erin Jackson asked him “what made it such a big deal,” Sandoval revealed he is still stumped by the whole ordeal. “I honestly don’t know,” the TomTom co-owner noted. “I’m a f–king stupid reality star. Like, come on man.”

In a confessional, the Tom Sandoval & The Most Extras frontman reflected on how the backlash tarnished his reputation.