Seven months later, Tom Sandoval continues to SUR-ve up apologies for cheating on Ariana Madix.
On the Oct. 5 episode of his Everybody Loves Tom podcast, the Vanderpump Rules star once again reflected on his months-long affair with Rachel "Raquel" Leviss with Bravo superfan Jerry O'Connell and promised he's a different man today.
"I fully f--king regret it," Sandoval admitted. "I feel bad about it. I hate that I hurt people. I, for the most part, have been pretty f--king miserable and I don't ever, ever, ever want to go through what I went through again. And I don't ever want to be responsible or the cause for ever hurting people like that and causing that kind of s--t ever again. I'm going to do everything in my power to never do that again and to never get lost and caught up in a situation like that."
As for what he would have done differently? Well, not cheated on his partner of nine years in the first place.
"I would have gotten out of my relationship, ripped the Band-Aid off, not delayed," the 40-year-old continued. "I think I got caught up in trying to create the perfect breakup, but it was way beyond that."
In fact, Sandoval admitted that the 2022 divorce of his costars Tom Schwartz and Katie Maloney made him want to craft an image that his and Madix's split was nothing but amicable before the Scandoval news broke in March.
"I saw what Tom and Katie went through and I wanted to do it better," he explained, "do it smoother. We were a different relationship than Tom and Katie, Ariana and I."
Though he's remorseful now, the TomTom co-owner also noted he was in a bad place when he started sleeping with Leviss behind Madix's back.
"I was on a path that was not great," he continued. "I was drinking all day, every day, chain smoking, cigarettes, going out constantly, chasing the dragon, running away from everything, hiding, hiding, hiding. And, when this happened, I was forced to take a really hard look at my life, really analyze and say, 'Dude, what the f--k are you doing?' You know what I mean? Like, this is not a path that leads to a long, healthy life."
Now, Sandoval is six months sober and grateful for the wakeup call.
"It did help me or cause me to change my habits," he said. "And really also to put in perspective certain things that are important, like, also see what relationships were more meaningful."
"I just got to try to move on and make the best out of the situation," he added," continue to try to do positive things, be a positive person, be a positive influence on a situation, bring fun and happiness to people as much as I can. That's what I love doing. That's what I feel like I'm on this earth to do, is to bring positivity and happiness to people, to make people better off than they were when they met me. And I love doing that. I feel like a lot of my friends have experienced that over the years, and that's one of the reasons why everybody didn't leave me. But I realize why a lot of people did."
Keep reading for every juicy detail we know (so far) about VPR's upcoming season 11.
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