Raquel Leviss.Photo:Cindy Ord/Bravo via Getty Images; Monica Schipper/Bravo via Getty Images
Cindy Ord/Bravo via Getty Images; Monica Schipper/Bravo via Getty Images
Rachel Levissis trying to create some positivity from the fallout of hermonths-long affairwith her formerVanderpump RulescostarTom Sandoval, which ended hisnine-year relationshipwithAriana Madix.
The 29-year-old is auctioning off for charity twotell-tale style items linked to their secret romance: her gold lightning bolt necklace and her infamous TomTom hoodied sweatshirt.
“I’m currently in the process of letting go: letting go of the things that no longer serve me anymore,” Leviss said in an Instagram Story Tuesday. “And as I’m cleaning out my closet, I have found a few items that are a little bit triggering and I just don’t want to see them, I don’t want to have them in my possession. I will never wear them again.”
“It’s all about creating a better mindset, changing your environment so that you can set yourself up for success,” she added. “Yeah, I’m about that right now.”
“I can’t rewrite history, but I can use something from my darkest days towards a good cause,” Leviss said.
Rachel Leviss.Charles Sykes/Bravo via Getty Images
Charles Sykes/Bravo via Getty Images
Mental health a cause close to Leviss' heart, as she spent three months following the scandal at the The Meadows in Wickenberg, Arizona, where she sought mental health and trauma therapy. She’s since declared she’s in her “healing era” andchose to go back to her birth name, ditching the moniker “Raquel” that she had adapted when moving to Los Angeles.
Leviss famously wore her TomTom hoodie to day three ofBravoConin October 2022, causing fans to speculate she was referencing her rumored hookup with the bar’s other owner,Tom Schwartz.
“[She’s] a fan girl,” Schwartz’s ex-wifeKatie Maloney, 36, wrote at the time — knowing that Schwartz had kissed Leviss during Shay and Brock Davies’wedding celebrations in Mexicoin August 2022 (something Bravo fans would only learn about when season 10 ofVanderpump Rulespremiered months later). “Started as a fan of the show and now a fan of the [Toms].”
That prompted a series of responses from Leviss. “I admit… I am a fan of the [Toms],” she wrote, later clarifing, “I’m definitely a fan of the restaurant… best vibe, food and drinks in WeHo in my opinion. But I’m also a fan of Tom Schwartz and Tom Sandoval!! Here to support their business endeavors.”
Raquel Leviss at BravoCon 2022.Monica Schipper/Bravo via Getty Images
Monica Schipper/Bravo via Getty Images
Around the same time, Sandoval alsodressed up in Leviss' BravoCon lookfor Halloween.
But the TomTom sweatshirt would soon take on a bigger meaning whennews of Leviss' affair with Sandovol, 40, broke on March 3— just a day after Leviss had gifted a copy of hoodie toAndy Cohenduring an appearance withVandeprump RulespalScheana ShayonWatch What Happens Live.
Tom Sandoval dressed as Raquel Leviss while posing alongside her for Halloween 2022.Raquel Leviss/Instagram
From there, Bravo fans started picking apart all of Leviss' past ensembles looking for signs, soon discovering that she had also worn a lightening bolt necklace to BravoCon similar to one Sandoval had long worn.
Vanderpump Rulescameras captured Levissbuying the lightning bolt necklace, a scene that aired during a season 10 episode. At the time the jewelry was being purchased, Leviss and Sandoval’s affair was yet to be exposed.
It wouldn’t be until part three of theBravoshow’s season 10 reunion that speculation of the connection was confirmed. When host Cohen, 55, asked if the necklace has “the meaning we all think it does,” Leviss admitted that she decided to get the piece because it “was significant to who [Sandoval] became in my life.”
“I know that’s not what anyone wants to hear,” she added.
Raquel Leviss and Tom Sandoval.Bravo; Phillip Faraone/Getty for House of Barrie
Expressing her complete disbelief at the situation,Lisa Vanderpumptold Leviss, “I don’t understand this, because you knew it was on camera. It was so provocative. It’s just … [why not have] the conversation with Ariana? It’s almost like in your mind you were in some pageant like you were acting a part competing with these other women.”
Leviss went on t share it was difficult to watch the scene where she purchased the necklace. “I was cringing so hard watching that back,“ she said, recalling when bought the $780 necklace with former costar Charli Burnett as a “birthday gift to myself.”
Tom Sandoval, Ariana Madix and Raquel Leviss.Faye Sadou/Media Punch/Alamy
Faye Sadou/Media Punch/Alamy
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Speaking to PEOPLE shortly after the blocking, Sandoval said he found Leviss’ move“thirsty.”
“Obviously, I think it’s a little immature and petty,” he said of his ex’s Instagram Story. “To post that you’re blocking seems a bit thirsty.”
source: people.com
