Rachel “Raquel” Leviss opened up about her breakdown over James Kennedy on the latest episode of her new podcast.
While looking back on the trips to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe that the Vanderpump Rules cast took amid season 10, Raquel, 29, explained what led up to her breakdown and discussed her and James’ split while also dishing on her producers’ manipulations, how Tom Sandoval, 41, fooled her, and why she’s convinced that she’s living in Scheana Shay‘s mind “rent-free.”
“No one understands that I was really hungover … and I had anxiety,” Raquel recalled of the drive from Las Vegas to Lake Tahoe on the January 29 episode of Rachel Goes Rogue.
Although Raquel began to open up to her castmates, who included Lala Kent, 33, Katie Maloney, 37, and Kristina Kelly, 36, amid the trip, she said the conversation they had was quite “vulnerable” and one she would normally have with people closer to her.
“I knew in the back of my mind that these are not safe people for you to bare it all to, and as I was telling them the story of me planning to break up with James and how I had intentions of leaving the ring box on the counter when he got back from Europe and that all of my stuff was going to be gone, and how I felt that that would be the safest way for me to break up with him,” she explained.
According to Raquel, she didn’t go into the details of why she and James were calling it quits because she didn’t want to ruin his life.
“Only a few people know that story and it was also at a time when I didn’t want to tell the world because I didn’t want to ruin his life,” she noted. “I think that’s what really brought on that panic attack because I wanted to say these things. There was more to that story and I was holding myself back and overthinking everything and knowing that this isn’t a safe place. That anxiety built up so much so that I couldn’t breathe, I felt faint, I couldn’t see, and I just started hyperventilating.”
After arriving in Lake Tahoe, where Charli Burnett, 26, met up with her and their castmates, Raquel didn’t feel welcomed, and along with Charli, she wanted to go home.
“The girls were talking … filling Charli in and kind of mocking me, you know, poking at me and one of my producers pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, you’re letting these girls pick on you right now. You should really stick up for yourself,’” Raquel shared. “And I’m like, ‘I’m so tired right now. I can’t do it.’”
The producer then pointed out to Raquel that it was hypocritical for Lala to be saying she doesn’t trust her around her man because she cheated with James.
“‘If anyone can’t trust anybody around their man, it would be her, right?’” the producer reportedly asked.
“And I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah. That’s a good point.’ So I was trying to take this direction and say my piece to stand up for myself,” Raquel explained. “[I felt] this pressure that I need to live up to this part of me that’s not allowing people to bully me anymore and not allowing their option of me to influence my opinion of myself and really standing up for myself, but it wasn’t done in a way that was empowering to me. It was prompted by an outside force and not something I would normally say.”
While producers did not want to see Raquel and Charli leave, they ultimately agreed to let her go — if she would do as they directed.
“They said, ‘Fine, you can leave, only if you tell the girls you’re going to go meet up with the guys and guys’ night.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay,’ and then they said, ‘And tell Lala that you think she’s just jealous of you because you’re the one that got with [Oliver Saunders], not her, and that he chose you,’” Raquel alleged.
Once Raquel delivered the line as she was reportedly told, producers allowed her to leave — but demanded she go directly to guys’ night in Los Angeles, where she was greeted by Sandoval, who acted surprised to see her.
“So Charli and I walk in and who’s the brightest-eyed, bushy-tailed one to see me, who is so thrilled that I just walked in, other than Tom Sandoval? And it’s such BS too because I heard somebody say, ’Tom definitely knew.’ Producers definitely told Tom that Charli and [I] were about to walk in like he was ready for that scene, and I’m like, ‘God dammit, he fooled me. I thought he was genuinely happy to see me.’ I was like, ‘This is what it feels like to be appreciated and feel like you’re welcomed in a room and feel like somebody wants you there, like, the stark contrast.’ But then later on, [I found] out that he was acting, and that wasn’t fully genuine,” she shared.
Also on the podcast episode, Raquel denied living in Scheana’s apartment rent-free.
“I subletted her apartment,” she clarified. “She wanted to keep her L.A. apartment while she was living in her house in San Diego with her family. This was also during the pandemic, so she had this COVID rate on her apartment, and she wanted to keep it, but she didn’t want to be paying such a large sum of money each month when she wasn’t even using it.”
Because Scheana knew Raquel was house hunting at the time, Raquel said she offered her apartment to her at a discounted rate.
“I paid my low rent every month, plus utilities, and I also cat sat for her cat who had, it was a procedure where they had to pump her cat with mercury, and because the baby couldn’t be exposed to the mercury, she needed someone to look after this cat. So I was like ‘I’ll look after her. It’s not a problem.’ So it worked out pretty well for both of us,” Raquel noted.
Now, however, after Scheana suggested she did not charge Raquel rent, Raquel is setting the record straight.
“She’s saying that I lived there rent-free, but it seems to be that I live rent-free in Scheana’s mind,” she stated.
Vanderpump Rules season 11 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on Bravo.
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