Ariana Madix 'Doesn't Care' About 'Vanderpump Rules' Shake Up (EXCL)
The spurned former cast members of Vanderpump Rules are locked in a bitter war of words over what went wrong that had caused bosses to boot out the entire cast – with Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix right at the center of the off-screen blame game drama.
Bravo announced on November 26 the show would be returning for a 12th season – but with a brand-new cast. People reported that the dramatic shake up was due to showrunners having “no way forward” with the current cast, emphasizing the firings were “completely driven by creative” decisions.
Now, a source exclusively tells Life & Style that members of the current cast basically gave them no options with how to handle the show’s future because of behind-the-scenes feuding. “It’s no secret that Ariana refused to film with Tom, and the fact is their storyline was the only one the viewers really cared about, so it put the producers in a very tough spot,” the insider says.
The difficulty the reality stars created began driving producers mad and making execs at the network nervous. “There’s only so many reaction scenes they can do with other cast members,” the source notes, “to keep the show interesting, they needed Tom and Ariana to work together.”
However, after Ariana, 39, discovered Tom, 42, was having an affair with costar Raquel Leviss in March 2023, getting them to cooperate on the show together has been tricky, to say the least. The former couple confirmed their relationship in season 2 in 2014, a year after Ariana joined the cast, and successfully navigated nine-years worth of challenges as a couple on the show before dropping the bombshell news of their split.
“It felt like rock bottom,” Ariana told People of the breakup. “I’ve gone through other stuff before on the show but nothing like this at all. But there’s nowhere else to go from rock bottom except up. So honestly, realizing that really helped me come out of that.”
While the insider does concede that “Ariana might have good reason not to want to see Tom’s face,” the obstinate refusal to deal with him after his betrayal has caused chaos for the show, which was “built around having the cast interact as a whole.”
“There’s no doubt it threw a huge wrench in things and now that the show got canned of course there’s a lot of blame being directed towards Ariana,” the source adds.
“That’s not the only issue, a lot of people are whispering that the salary demands from her, and from LaLa, were also an issue, so fingers are also being pointed at her over that aspect too.”
Despite blame being thrown in her direction, the source makes a point to add, “Ariana doesn’t care,” about the rumors or the accusations, “She’s got so many opportunities, not being tied to the show anymore is a good thing.”
“But there are quite a few people on the cast that are really stressed and they want to put the blame somewhere so Ariana is a convenient scapegoat.”