During his New York Times interview, “Vanderpump Rules” star Tom Sandoval made waves when he likened “Scandoval” to the media frenzies around O.J. Simpson and the murder of George Floyd.
As Variety reported, Irina Aleksander, the author of the profile on Sandoval, tried to smooth over his comments.
“I think I knew what he meant,” wrote Aleksander. “He was trying to express the oddity of becoming the symbolic center of a nationwide discussion and a major news story; what he communicated instead was something more honest, which is just how much the experience had made him lose perspective.”
Sandoval gained notoriety after cheating on his girlfriend, Ariana Madix, with one of her best friends, Rachel Leviss.
When asked about it and the subsequent fallout, he said, “I’m not a pop-culture h
istorian, really. But I witnessed the O.J. Simpson thing and George Floyd and all these big things, which is really weird to compare this to that, I think, but do you think in a weird way it’s a little bit the same?”The reality television star also said he thought he’d been treated worse than Danny Masterson, the former “That ’70s Show” star who is serving a 30-year prison sentence for raping multiple women.
“I feel like I got more hate than Danny Masterson, and he’s a convicted rapist,” opined Sandoval.
Aleksander added that Bravo executives contacted them after the interview.
“A Bravo publicist rang me late on a Friday. Some of what Sandoval had said had gotten back to Bravo, and everyone was concerned. What was it that he said about O.J. Simpson and George Floyd exactly?”
Following the kerfuffle, Sandoval issued an apology.
“My intentions behind the comments I made in New York Times Magazine were to explain the level of national media attention my affair received. The comparison was inappropriate and ignorant. I’m incredibly sorry and embarrassed,” he wrote.