Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix is adamant she never shared the “intimate” video of Raquel Leviss that she copied from her former boyfriend Tom Sandoval’s phone, so she’s asking a judge to release her from the revenge porn lawsuit that Leviss filed against Madix and Sandoval in February.
In new court filings obtained by Rolling Stone, Madix says she only sent snippets of the NSFW video directly to Leviss the night she discovered the recording because she was upset and wanted to confront her VPR co-star over the alleged affair that became the cultural phenomenon known as “Scandoval.”
“I did not send the videos to anyone else. Nor did I share, display, or show the videos to anyone else,” Madix wrote in a sworn declaration filed late Friday with her motion to strike the claims against her. She recalled sending the videos with a text that read, “you’re dead to me,” and included a copy of the text chain with Leviss as an exhibit. “I did not send the videos to anyone else. Nor did I share, display, or show the videos to anyone else,” Madix wrote. She claimed that Sandoval “forcibly grabbed” her phone a short time later and deleted the videos.
Madix said that “minutes later,” she texted her friend Logan Cochran about what happened and told him she no longer had the videos. “Tom took my phone and deleted them,” she wrote, according to a reproduction of the text chain included as another exhibit.
Her lawyers wrote in her motion that Madix was protected by her constitutional right to free speech when she subsequently discussed the video with family and friends. “Notwithstanding Ms. Madix’s discretion and restraint, plaintiff alleges in the complaint that Ms. Madix should have done absolutely nothing after discovering the messages and sexually explicit video between her life partner and plaintiff. If plaintiff had her way, Ms. Madix would not have told anyone about the affair or the video. But, because Ms. Madix did share such information — as is her right — plaintiff seeks to punish her and blame Ms. Madix for the negative reaction plaintiff received as a result of her affair with Mr. Sandoval,” the new filing states.
With her new motion, Madix is asking a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to strike all three of the claims lodged against her in the lawsuit: revenge porn, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Sandoval also is facing those three claims in addition to a fourth one for alleged eavesdropping related to the initial recording. Sandoval filed a separate challenge to the lawsuit last week, calling it “vague” and deficient, adding that Leviss’ own conduct was “open and ostentatious” in the context of a voluntary reality TV show scrutinizing her private life.
“The only thing more laughable than the motion itself is the idea that Ariana supposedly just picked up the phone and magically got into it and found this on her way to the bathroom. The whole story is ludicrous,” Leviss’ lawyer Mark Geragos tells Rolling Stone, echoing the suggestion in Leviss’ lawsuit that Madix and Sandoval concocted the video incident to “leverage” the affair for a dramatic storyline for Vanderpump Rules. (In a notable twist, Sandoval’s lawyer is Matthew Geragos, the brother of Mark Geragos. The attorneys are from different law firms.)
In her original 19-page complaint, Leviss, whose real name is Rachel Leviss, claimed that Sandoval “surreptitiously recorded” her “in a state of undress and engaged in sex acts” as they embarked on a romantic relationship purportedly behind the back of Madix. The lawsuit alleged that back in March 2023, Madix took the “sexually explicit videos” obtained from Sandoval’s phone and “distributed them to others” in an alleged act of “revenge porn.”
As fans of the highly addictive Bravo reality show know, video of the FaceTime call is credited with exposing Sandoval and Leviss’ affair, leading to sky-high ratings for the show. According to Madix’s new filing, she found the video on Sandoval’s phone after his device slid out of his pocket while he was performing with his cover band at a club in West Hollywood, Calif. She wrote in her declaration that someone handed her the phone for safekeeping and that her “woman’s intuition” led her to check the device, which she easily accessed because she already knew the code. Madix says she was “shocked” to find a recording of the call while scanning the phone alone in a bathroom stall. “I hurriedly took out my own phone and made two recordings of the FaceTime video. Prior to that moment,
I considered plaintiff a friend and did not know that she and Mr. Sandoval were having an affair,” Madix wrote.
In her lawsuit, Leviss said she found the story of how Madix obtained the video suspect, but she was clear she believed Madix shared the videos with members of the Vanderpump Rules cast as well as people working for the show. “Leviss has suffered grave emotional, psychological, financial and reputational harm as a result of Madix’s distribution, dissemination, and publicization of the illicit videos,” the lawsuit said. Leviss said she was “humiliated and villainized” thanks to the actions of Sandoval and Madix. She accused the pair of acting with “malice,” meaning they should be held liable for punitive damages “to deter such conduct in the future.”
“To be clear, Leviss has repeatedly acknowledged that her actions were morally objectionable and hurtful to Madix. She has offered numerous apologies. There is more to the story, however,” Leviss’ lawsuit said. “Lost in the mix was that Leviss was a victim of the predatory and dishonest behavior of an older man, who recorded sexually explicit videos of her without her knowledge or consent, which were then distributed, disseminated and discussed publicly by a scorned woman seeking vengeance, catalyzing the scandal. Leviss ultimately checked herself into a mental health facility and remained there for three months while Bravo, Evolution and the cast milked the interest her excoriation had peaked.”
Leviss further claimed that she was in a “vulnerable state” while filming for the show and that she was “encouraged” by producers to drink alcohol. Leviss said in her suit that she started sleeping with Sandoval in August 2022, and she claimed that Madix knew about it before she found the video on Sandoval’s phone. She alleges Vanderpump Rules was on the verge of being canceled around this time, as prior plots had “grown stale,” and that Sandoval and Madix “had every incentive” to “leverage” the affair into “the storyline that Vanderpump Rules so desperately needed.”
Madix denies any wrongdoing and is asking not only to be stricken from the lawsuit but for Leviss to cover her related legal fees. The next hearing in the case is set for May 24.
Michaela Coel in ‘The Christophers.’Claudette Barius/NEON
