The Financial Ramifications of Scandoval

What a reality TV show love triangle has taught us about money.

“How are you handling today’s news?” a friend texted me at 9:08 pm on Friday. 

My stomach sank. What had happened? I’d been largely offline all day dealing with a personal matter and had not been on any social media or news outlets. 

My mind immediately began catastrophizing while I responded, “I’m out of the loop. What news?!” 

“Tom Sandoval??? LOL omg am I breaking this news to you?!” appeared on my phone. 

“Yuuuup. What happened?” I asked without even taking to social media thinking it’s probably something stupid. 

“He and Ariana are done, he cheated with Raquel!!!” 

Well now I was fully activated and it was time to start deep diving into Internet rabbit holes. 

For those who read that introduction and are thoroughly confused, that’s probably for the best. For those who, like me, have dedicated hours to consuming content around the Vanderpump Rules drama, aka the Scandoval, we are definitely not better off for it but are certainly entertained. And for my fellow VPR fans who also watched the Real House of Beverly Hills episode seamlessly transform into the pilot of Vanderpump Rules in realtime and never stopped watching, this is our reward for suffering through season 9. 

Now, why, you may be asking, am I bringing up reality TV drama in a personal finance centric newsletter? What does this have to do with anything that goes on here? 

Oh, my friend, so much! Because Tom and Ariana are a perfect example of a modern (elder) Millennial couple who have enmeshed their financial lives over nearly a decade, including buying a home together, without getting married. The financial fall out of this scandal is going to be significant. 

The Scandoval: A (sort of) Brief Recap 

Woof, this is a scandal that’s 10 years in the making with so many layers of why it’s dramatic that it’s difficult to succinctly outline. But on a very high-level:

Tom Sandoval (original member of the Vanderpump Rules cast) has been dating Ariana Madix (season 2 addition to the VPR cast and basically an OG) for nearly 10 years and have been a couple since season 3 of VPR – currently the show is airing its 10th season. There have been cheating rumors in the past and Tom did cheat on his previous girlfriend, Kristen Doute. We’ve seen cracks in the couple’s relationships before, especially Tom wanting the more traditional path of marriage and children while Ariana stood firm in her commitment to avoid both. 

Raquel Leviss joined the cast in season 6 as the girlfriend of cast member James Kennedy. James, Ariana, and Tom have historically been quite close and Raquel ended up becoming best friends with Ariana. In season 9, Raquel and James get engaged but Raquel breaks off the engagement right before filming the season 9 reunion. Notably, Tom helped James pay for a significant amount of the proposal, which always seemed strange to me. 

In March of 2023, after just a few episodes of season 10 had aired, Ariana found out Raquel and Tom were having a full-blown affair after allegedly seeing texts and videos on Tom’s phone. It’s apparently been going on for seven months. Fans (myself included) were sent into an absolute spiral about this love triangle and it took over corners of the internet and pop culture. 

This barely scratches the surface of the full picture, but it’s as brief as I can possibly be. Now, let’s get into…

The Financial Ramifications 

The house

Tom and Ariana bought a $2 million five bedroom, five-and-a-half bath house in Valley Village (Los Angeles) back in 2019. The pair never shared exact financial details about who paid what, but just that they’d purchased the home together. They’d been living in a truly crappy apartment in LA for years prior, even when other cast members had upgraded their living situations. Ariana often made reference to staying there in order to massively save up – but Tom Sandoval has been painted on the show as a significant spender. It always made me wonder if Ariana was supporting the pair’s day-to-day life. But, we don’t actually know. 

Now, the question becomes: Who gets the house? 

Without a legal marriage, it’s quite murky. There are laws in each state about how assets get divided up in a divorce (or you can have a prenup to outline how to split property owned prior to a marriage or a postnup to outline property purchased within a marriage). Point being, there are actual laws about what is deemed fair and the court will get involved as part of divorce proceedings. 

It’s not so simple with unmarried couples. There is no court system that needs to get involved in the dissolution of this relationship. If both Tom and Ariana’s names are on the title to the property, then they both have equal right to the home, even if one has paid significantly more towards the purchase or expenses. 

There is also a tax consequence for unmarried couples. Let’s say Ariana is going to buy Tom out of his share of the home. For a married, but divorcing, couple, the transfer of assets is typically a tax free event. Not so with unmarried couples. Her lump sum payment to buy him out will likely trigger as a taxable event. 

If they can’t agree, then going to court is going to be costly – not unlike a divorce. It could cost tens-of-thousands of dollars in legal fees to battle out ownership of the home in court or even hundreds-of-thousands if it lasts for a long time. 

The solution: 

Of course, there is a legal option to handle this sort of situation if you’re unmarried but want to buy property together. It’s to get a cohabitation agreement. This should outline what to do in the event of a break up (e.g. sell and split profits, one person buys the other out) and you can also outline the split of who would get what in a sale based on who really has more equity in the home. 

Their brands

Tom and Ariana met when they were both bartending at Lisa Vanderpump’s restaurant Villa Blanca. Both took the art of mixology seriously and built businesses based on their love of bartending and cocktails. 

Tom is a minor partner in a bar called TomTom and has a larger stake in a bar called Schwartz & Sandy’s. Both bear his name and leverage his (minor) celebrity to lure in customers. Within hours of the affair news breaking fans were calling for a boycott of his bars. Sandoval even broke his silence to post on Instagram asking folks to please consider other people’s financial lives were at stake including partners and employees and that he “is a small part of a much bigger thing.” I highly doubt either bar will suffer too much because people will be interested in going to see if they can see Tom or Raquel in person at the bars.

On the other hand, Ariana owns a DIY cocktail kit company (well, owns might be a strong word. She might be the face of…). Fans bought out her currently available Yuzu Only Live Once cocktail kit in support of her. 

Ariana and Tom also collaborated on a cocktail book called “Fancy AF Cocktails: Drink Recipes from a Couple of Professional Drinkers”. The current ranking on Amazon is in the 6,000s – which is quite high for a book released in 2019 – and recent comments do indicate folks are purchasing the book to financially support her. Of course, Tom would likely be getting a cut of those sales too. 

Finally, Ariana and Katie Maloney (fellow cast member and ex-wife of Tom Sandoval’s best friend and business partner, Tom Schwartz) have been planning to open a sandwich shop together. The shop “Something About Her” still doesn’t have a planned opening date, but the two did drop a merch line as a way to allow fans to financially support Ariana during this time. There are sweatshirts, tshirts, hats and phone cases with the sandwich shop’s logo and name. 

Notably, other cast members of VPR have been cashing in on the scandal as well – none more so than Lala Kent who deeply discounted the eyeshadow that was a collab with Raquel and sold it out in hours. Lala also released sweatshirts with quotes from her “hot takes” about the entire scandal. 

The solution:

There’s not really a cut-and-dry solution here. Just consider that if your businesses are all tied to your personal brand, plus are built with another person, you really have to think through the financial consequences of a dumb move like cheating on your girlfriend who is beloved by fans. Sadly, I don’t think this will have long-term consequences for Tom because the drama is too juicy for him to get cut from the cast of Vanderpump Rules next season and people will eventually either stop caring and go to the bars again or be fans and want to go for the chance of seeing VPR cast members. 

Final takeaway: Always have some of your own money. 

The largest takeaway here is to have your own money, especially if you’re unmarried and cohabitating. You should never be fully combining your financial life with a partner’s if you’re unmarried, no matter how serious the relationship, because there is not the same level of protections as there are in a divorce. And even divorce can feel insanely lopsided – which is why prenups matter! 

Frankly, I don’t see any issue with married couples having their own checking and/or savings accounts with some money that’s just theirs. It can be healthy so long as there isn’t an element of financial infidelity and secrecy around the account. This of course assumes a healthy marriage. Secrecy is certainly understandable in the case of trying to escape an abusive situation. 

Even more important than a stash of cash in your name is your ability to earn a living. Ariana will bear the emotional and psychological scars of this scandal, but hopefully she’ll also be able to walk away from the show and earn a living another way if she doesn’t want to be subjected to filming with her ex and his mistress.