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Tom Sandoval has released a second apology for comparing Scandoval to George Floyd in a recent New York Times profile.
Ahead of the most recent episode of his Everybody Loves Tom podcast, the Vanderpump Rules star — who made headlines last year for cheating on his longtime girlfriend Ariana Madix with their mutual close friend and co-star Rachel “Raquel” Leviss — took some time to address his tone-deaf comparison.
“I wanted to again apologize for the comments I made in the New York Times article,” he said. “I stupidly was trying to make a comparison of the absurd amount of national media my affair received, and the comparison I made was stupid and ignorant and I’m really embarrassed, and I’m really, really sorry.”
In the article, which was published Feb. 20, the interviewer asks Sandoval why he believes his months-long affair with Leviss gained so much attention in the media when the news first broke in March 2023.
“I’m not a pop-culture historian 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?” he says in the piece.
Sandoval was subsequently hit with a wave of backlash since Floyd was a Black man whose death at the hands of a white police officer sparked a massive social movement in 2020, while Sandoval is merely a reality star who was caught in a lie.
The immediate criticism forced him to release an initial apology via his social media accounts.
“My intentions behind the comments I made in New York Times Magazine were to explain the level of national media attention my affair received,” he wrote. “The comparison was inappropriate and ignorant. I’m incredibly sorry and embarrassed.”
Even Sandoval’s ex-girlfriend Madix was taken aback by his comment.
“I was just blown away by how anybody could say something so awful,” she told the Los Angeles Times in a profile that was published Thursday (Feb. 29).
As for the latest in Scandoval news, Leviss has filed a lawsuit against both Sandoval and Madix for revenge porn, invasion of privacy, eavesdropping and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
“Leviss was a victim of the predatory and dishonest behavior of an older man, who recorded sexually explicit videos of her without her knowledge or consent, which were then distributed, disseminated, and discussed publicly by a scorned woman seeking vengeance, catalyzing the scandal,” the suit reads, per Deadline.
