Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval is enemy No. 1 at BravoCon this year.
A crowd repeatedly booed Sandoval, 41, at the convention’s Vanderpump Rules panel on Friday, November 3, Us Weekly can confirm. The panel took place at Caesars Forum’s Gold Stage in Las Vegas and was moderated by Queer Eye’s Karamo Brown.
The fans’ negative reaction began when Karamo, 43, asked the panel whether anyone was nervous to be there, and Sandoval raised his hand. “We know you’re nervous,” Karamo quipped.
Sandoval cemented his status as a reality TV villain in March when his months-long affair with costar Raquel Leviss came to light. He and Ariana Madix called it quits after nine years of dating in the wake of the scandal.
After their split, both Sandoval and Ariana, 38, returned to film the forthcoming 11th season of Pump Rules, which wrapped production in September. During Friday’s panel, Ariana, who is currently competing on season 32 of Dancing With the Stars, described her season 11 filming experience as “weird.”
She continued: “It was different, it was difficult, and I’m glad that it’s behind me — this past season.”
Sandoval, for his part, was booed several more times over the course of the panel. The crowd took issue with the TomTom cofounder describing season 11 as a “roller-coaster” and saying he’d come to “appreciate the small things” since becoming a social pariah, like “people saying hi to you … a smile.”
Sandoval and Ariana also received feedback from the crowd regarding their shared home in Los Angeles. “Sell the house!” a fan yelled after Ariana said she was “actively trying to change the ownership of the house situation.” Ariana added that she is “staying somewhere” else while filming DWTS because of the show’s “chaotic schedule.”
Although the panel’s audience seemed decidedly against Sandoval — who told the crowd that he hasn’t consumed alcohol in six months — some of his costars came to his defense.
“I still enjoy talking with Sandoval,” Scheana Shay’s husband, Brock Davies, said. “I understand that you guys feel some type of way, but we are friends.”
Lala Kent, who has been a vocal critic of Sandoval since the scandal broke, also subtly praised him.
“In a weird, weird way — I don’t care if you f–king boo me — with everyone really hating on Tom, he still went out, he still performed shows,” Lala, 33, said. “Life went on. … if I were in his position, I’d tell y’all to go f–k off.”
Missing from the panel was Raquel, 29, who didn’t return for season 11 of Pump Rules. In September, a source exclusively told Us that Raquel had not spoken to Sandoval “in nearly three months.”
The insider added that while Raquel was at a mental health treatment facility (which she entered in April), she “made the decision that it was healthiest to cut Tom out of her life completely.”
Raquel’s former costar Katie Maloney said during a September appearance on the “Almost Adulting” podcast that she doesn’t “think I’m ever going to see [Raquel] again.”
