Scheana Shay Recalls Confronting Ariana About Tom & Raquel

Scheana Shay is admitting to confronting Ariana Madix about Tom Sandoval‘s relationship with Rachel “Raquel” Leviss, as Brittany Cartwright also opens up about feeling stuck and going through “hard times” with Jax Taylor before announcing their separation last month.

As Scheana reflected on the end of Ariana’s relationship with Tom, 41, with the Vanderpump Rules cast, Brittany, 35, expressed concern for a future without Jax, 44, and Kristen accused Sandoval of dragging Ariana down before they parted ways.

“We can put all the happy stuff on Instagram that we want to, but people don’t really know what’s going on unless you’re with them 24/7,” Brittany noted on the March 12 episode of the Pump Rules: After Show.

Although Brittany wasn’t close to Ariana when she and Sandoval split due to Jax’s falling out with Sandoval and “thought they were fine” at the time, she said she understood their dynamic.

“I can kind of get how you get into this friendship-roommate-type situation, and then you just feel like you are kind of stuck a little bit — not that I am, but I feel that way sometimes if me and Jax are going through our hard times,” she explained. “It can be very hard to separate that. Like, I’m thinking, ‘Am I gonna lose all this stuff I built? Am I gonna be OK?’”

“It can be very scary. Very hard,” Brittany added.

As a close friend of Ariana’s, Scheana said that Ariana and Sandoval didn’t seem happy “for a long time.”

“They just didn’t really show it,” Scheana explained. “For months leading up to that, I had been hearing things. I took Ariana to lunch, I sat her down. I even straight up asked her if she thought anything was going on with Tom and Raquel because we had heard all the stuff we heard last season and I was concerned for her.”

According to Scheana, Ariana told her that everything was “good” with Sandoval — and that they’d “been intimate.” But according to Kristen Doute, 41, Sandoval’s party-boy lifestyle was likely getting old for Ariana.

“I think over time, what was cute about Tom and fun about Tom, nine years later… It’s not fun and cute anymore when you’re in your 40s and waking up every morning and dealing with the partying and the lack of responsibilities,” she reasoned. “It’s one thing to want an assistant to help you out because you’re busy, but it’s quite another to have an assistant because you can’t open your own mail, wipe your own a**, or clean your own kitchen.”

“That’s not who Ariana is,” Kristen continued. “She wanted to do everything she’s doing right now, and I think Tom would’ve just dragged her down, and she never would’ve had this.”

“He was dragging her down,” Scheana agreed. “And I also feel like that’s a reason why they didn’t open up to the friend group, because maybe they felt like if we can work through this privately, eventually it will get better.”

Turning her sight to Brittany and Jax, Kristen said that because they’ve been on television for so many years, it’s “easy to judge” them, especially considering Jax’s cheating past.

“It’s very easy to judge Jax and Brittany knowing what I know before their marriage and before Cruz. But at the end of the day, Brittany’s a grown woman with a husband and a child and she can make decisions for herself, choices for herself, and my job is to be Brittany’s friend,” Kristen said. “No one ever knows what it’s like behind closed doors… So it’s really easy to speculate.”

Also on the Pump Rules: After Show, Lala Kent, 33, admitted to feeling stuck with former fiance Randall Emmett, 52.

“There were so many times that I wanted to leave my ex. Like, nothing had happened, I just was not happy with him anymore, and those were the things that made me stay. Like, we have the podcast, we have all of these things that I feel, like, were so intertwined, how am I supposed to leave? Until it was so undeniable that I had to leave and will deal with the rest later. So I can understand why Sandoval felt a little bit stuck,” she reasoned.

That said, as Lala put it, “I think the time to end the relationship is when you want to put your d*ck in the friend.”

Vanderpump Rules season 11 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on Bravo.