Raquel Leviss’ 90-day stay at a mental health facility helped her figure out why she’s attracted to men who are not available.
“The other part of the reason why I wanted to go to a treatment facility was to understand my behaviors, and my goal was to really get down to the bottom of OK, why am I choosing men that are unavailable? Why do I keep finding myself in unhealthy relationships?” she said on Bethenny Frankel’s podcast, “Just B,” Wednesday.
The “Vanderpump Rules” star recalled that she knew she “needed to make a change,” but she first had to determine “what it was that leads to those behaviors.”
Leviss, 28, added that looking back, she was still struggling with the aftermath of calling off her engagement to James Kennedy in December 2021, and that played a part in her eventually having an affair with Tom Sandoval.
“I was completely wrapped up in heartbreak and wanting to get certain needs met,” she said. “Looking back now, I can see that I was still healing from a relationship from somebody who I thought I was going to marry and in ending that, I still hadn’t healed yet, so when I was filming I was drinking a lot to ease that anxiety.”
While Sandoval, 41, was in the midst of a nine-year relationship with Ariana Madix when he began seeing Leviss, Kennedy, 31, was single — although he faced a myriad of cheating allegations over the years. The former beauty queen also shared a few smooches with Katie Maloney’s not-yet divorced husband, Tom Schwartz, last summer.
Leviss eventually fled Los Angeles and checked into a mental health facility in March after her months-long affair with Sandoval — dubbed Scandoval — was exposed.
“It was a really scary decision to make because I knew I needed help, but I didn’t know what to expect going in,” she said of the facility — which she left last month.
The Bravolebrity admitted that it was initially “difficult” for her to open up since she was “already carrying so much shame” from Scandoval.
“But as time went on, I was able to warm up and really share my story in an authentic honest way, and I was met with grace and compassion from my peers,” she added.
Leviss said that in addition to learning to be more “compassionate” towards herself, she also forgave herself and accepted that she has a “love addiction.”
“[Love] is addictive, and it explains why I couldn’t stop seeing this person, but it also doesn’t excuse the fact that it happened, but now I know better,” she shared.
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The reality star also came to the realization that despite thinking she and Sandoval were both in love with each other at the time, it was something deeper within herself that caused her to have the affair.
“We had this connection that I felt seen and heard by him that I haven’t really had that connection with other people on the cast nor people in my real life,” she began.
“So I was filming in a tumultuous environment, I was needing some validation and somebody to hear what I was going through, and here comes along Tom, who really gave me that time of day to share my side of the story in a non-judgment zone — and that’s exactly what I needed in that moment,” she recalled.
Elsewhere in Leviss’ first interview since the explosive Season 10 reunion, she claimed that she has “not seen a single penny” from the network — who is “laughing, running to the bank with this scandal.”
“Vanderpump Rules” began filming Season 11 in July, but Leviss has not been spotted participating in any scenes with the cast.