Rachel Leviss Details 'Embarrassing' First Hookup with Tom Sandoval While Ariana Madix Slept Nearby

With a new season of the Bravo show on the horizon, Leviss kicked off her Rachel Goes Rogue podcast on Monday by first explaining why she chose not to return to the series ... before getting into how things between her and Tom Sandoval allegedly began.

"I don't want to be with Tom and I've made the decision to cut Tom out of my life," she said of why she turned down Season 11. "Going back to do the show, it would force me to interact with him ... and I know I'm on the outskirts with all the other cast, so I wouldn't get my story across."

"I really believe the girls wouldn't give me the time of day to let me open up to them, given my previous history with my interactions with them," she added, before saying that she did consider returning while she was in treatment for her mental health after the scandal blew up.

"I had become the worst version of myself through the 7 months of secrecy, deception and going along with these lies that ate me up. And part of that is my fault ... and it was a really bad choice," she said. "But I was still in relationship with Tom, we were talking on the phone when I went in for treatment and in those months I was in there, I was debating whether or not to do the show."

In the end, she felt she was watching "the worst version" of herself when revisiting Season 10 and now believes she "made the right decision by leaving." That being said, she will continue to watch -- and react to what she sees on her podcast.

Later in the episode, her podcast cohosts wondered who made the first move between her and Sandoval. That led to Leviss detailing their first hookup, leaving that answer up for them to decide.

Similar to how Sandoval explained it, she said the two went out for drinks at The Abbey in West Hollywood, before she offered to give him a ride home. Once there, he invited her in for a nightcap, while Ariana Madix slept upstairs. He wound up being locked out of the home, so they went around to the back of the house to try and find another way in.

"We go in the back, and the sliding door isn't unlocked, so he was like, 'Well, we've got the fire pit here,' and I was like, 'Yeah, the fire pit's cool, we can just keep talking,'" she recalled. "We got the fire pit going, we’re chatting, and then he goes, 'You know what the best thing about this pool is? That it’s heated.'"

They decided to go on, with Rachel saying, "I took my jeans off, and I had this corset top on, so I left that on, and I was in my underwear, and I went in his pool and it was heated."

Sandoval, she said, was in just his boxers and while they were initially swimming on opposite sides of the pool, he came over to her to tell her to turn down the music she was playing from her phone.

"And then looked at me a certain way and then he grabbed me, spun me and kissed me and I was like surprised but like happy," she said, before cringing at herself by saying, "Ugh, so bad, so embarrassing."

"I knew it was wrong, Tom knew it was wrong. Right after Tom kissed me, he like sat on the stair of the pool and he was like, hands on his face, his mind must have been running a million miles a minute, contemplating what to do," she continued.

According to Rachel, she said she should leave and started to get dressed, before he told her to sit down while he thought things over.

"Hang on, I just need to think for a second. I just don't know what to do right now because I really like you," she said he told her, before she said she'd feel more comfortable talking it out in her car than in his backyard. Once there, they hooked up.

When asked by her cohosts whether they did "everything," Leviss responded by saying, "It was very bad."

Elsewhere in the episode, she also said hearing him speak on a recent podcast interview made her feel like she "was going to throw up." She added, "His voice repulsed me. And I'm like, 'OK, this is a good sign.'"

The two would continue to see each other in secret, all while Sandoval and Madix lived together. The affair was exposed in March 2023, bringing in a ratings boom for Vanderpump Rules and an end to Tom and Ariana's relationship.

Explaining why she decided to do a podcast after walking away from Vanderpump Rules, Leviss said she knew she was once again opening up the door to "scrutiny and judgement." She, however, felt like she was "obligated for myself to stand up for myself."

She added, "I would rather speak my truth and share my story and be ridiculed for it than sit idly by and watch this whole season pan out and not get my story across. That's why I'm doing my podcast. I'm really scared, I'm really nervous."

Season 11 of Vanderpump Rules premieres January 30 at 8pm ET on Bravo.