UPDATE: 2/8/24 9:37 a.m. ET
Vanderpump Rules alum Billie Lee has “clarified” rumors that she’s been living with Tom Sandoval.
During her “Billie & the Kid” podcast debut episode, released on Wednesday, February 7, Sandoval thanked Billie for helping him “organize” the house he shares with ex Ariana Madix.
“I like to help,” Billie said. “I love being of service. It doesn’t mean that I live there. Even though people are literally DMing me.”
Sandoval added, “Billie literally has her own place. Here’s the thing, the house is kind of big. I get, like, lonely being there.”
However, Billie did say that she will “house sit” and “dogsit” while Sandoval is out of town.
Original story continues below:
Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix suspects that Billie Lee is living at the home she shares with ex-boyfriend Tom Sandoval.
“I think Billie Lee literally lives in my house right now by the way,” Ariana, 38, said during the Tuesday, January 30, episode of the Vanderpump Rules After Show, which aired following the season 11 premiere.
Billie, 39, who appeared as a recurring guest on seasons 6 and 7 of VPR, has previously raised eyebrows for her bond with Sandoval, 41.
When other VPR cast members and alums turned on Sandoval after his affair with Rachel “Raquel” Leviss came to light in March 2023, Billie Lee defended him and continued to spend time with him. (In the wake of the cheating scandal, Sandoval and Ariana split after nine years of dating.)
“Tom and Ariana are my family. They have been there for me over the years and I wouldn’t be where I am today without them. It saddens me that people are so fixated on picking a side,” Billie told Entertainment Tonight in April 2023, adding that she “can support and be there for both parties.”
Billie and Sandoval have also sparked affair rumors of their own in the past. During a May 2023 appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Ariana said that she doesn’t believe the gossip.
“I trust that Billie Lee would not do that,” she said, noting that the duo had “talked about” the rumors offline.
While Billie may or may not be living at Ariana’s house, Sandoval certainly is, and the exes each have their own reasons for staying at the residence.
“I knew that if I moved out, she would probably have a friend move in and nothing would happen,” Sandoval said during the VPR After Show, claiming that “all those bills” would still be “coming out of my accounts” if he left.
He also argued that he “couldn’t afford to go live in another place.” His costar and pal Tom Schwartz backed him up on that point, noting that it wasn’t “a great time to sell” when the scandal broke.
Sandoval went on to say that living with his ex hasn’t been all bad.
“It’s one of those things where I feel like it was more of a [big] deal to everybody else than to us,” he said. “It was kind of reassuring to me, because I feel like Ariana really went out of her way to try to dehumanize me, but it feels more performative than anything. Because at the end of the day, if she thinks I’m this, like, serial killer, then why is she still OK living with me?”
Sandoval added that Ariana staying in the home made him feel like “on some level she trusted me and felt safe with me being there [rather] than her being alone in that house.”
Ariana, meanwhile, sees the situation a bit differently.
“The respectful thing to do would have been for him to accept Rachel’s offer of staying in her apartment,” she said on Tuesday. “Even, like, two days after all this happened, Kristen Doute was like, ‘Dude, you should, like, leave. Give her space, give her time.’ And he just outright refused, basically.”
Ariana then theorized why Sandoval was so intent on staying put despite their contentious dynamic.
“I think he also felt like all of this stuff had happened to him as opposed to him making the stuff happen. And so because of that belief he also felt like all of it was very unfair,” she said. “So, I think that was part of the reason why he was digging his heels in and throwing parties. … It was almost like a kid throwing a tantrum sort of.”
The pair’s roommate woes got real earlier this month when Ariana filed a lawsuit against Sandoval, asking a judge that their home be “partitioned by sale.”
In court documents obtained by Us Weekly, Ariana made it clear that she is not looking for “a division in kind,” which would allow both of them to retain ownership of the property with only one party selling their interest in the house.
Sandoval slammed Ariana’s handling of the situation during a Tuesday appearance on Nick Viall’s “The Viall Files” podcast.
“Ariana is making it out to be that me wanting to keep the house is a psychopath move, but it’s not. She’s like, ‘Oh, he gave me a s–t offer.’ I gave her an offer of $3.1 million. We bought our house for $2.05 [million],” Sandoval claimed before calling Ariana’s actions “petty.”
Vanderpump Rules airs on Bravo Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
