One of the simmering subplots of the fallout from Scandoval has been the destruction of Scheana’s friendship with Sandoval. Vanderpump Rules season 11, episode 3 ended with a tense sit-down between the former friends in the historic back alley of SUR — as if it could happen anywhere else — and concluded with a confessional from Tom where he declares that “out of everyone, the loss of Scheana’s friendship has been devastating to me.”
While it was hard not to get distracted by the giant Angie K.-esque sunglasses that Scheana wore for their face-off, it was also impossible to ignore that there’s genuine hurt on both sides of the shotty dining setup they were sitting at. Tom’s mad at Scheana for having Raquel’s ex on her podcast and giving him a platform to claim that Tom had told Raquel he and Ariana were in an open relationship (I think we should all prepare for podcast drama to dominate this season at this point), while Scheana is obviously pissed at Tom not only for his affair but also for using her as a pawn in his web of lies and blocking her various Instagram accounts after she reached out to him following his friend’s death. Yes, that Summer Moon block is still a sore subject!
Of course, this all follows Scheana emotionally ending her friendship with Tom during a scene from last season’s finale, which has been living rent-free in our heads ever since. But why is their friendship coming to an end such a BFD? Let’s look back at Scheana and Sandoval’s 15-year friendship to serve as a reminder of just how close they were.
Seasons 1-3
Before Vanderpump Rules, both Scheana and Sandoval worked at Lisa Vanderpump’s other restaurant, Villa Blanca, when it opened in 2009. That’s where their friendship began. They both transferred over to SUR, where Tom was famously a bartender and Scheana waitressed in one of those iconic patterned dresses.
While their friendship never really took center stage early in the show’s run, Sandoval and Scheana were always close, with filming the show no doubt bonding them even more intensely than working together at Lisa’s restaurants had. During Scheana’s tumultuous years being on and off with the Witches of WeHo (Stassi, Katie and Kristen), Sandoval was a constant source of support for her. Mike Shay, who Scheana was dating when the show started, also credited Tom with being his first friend in LA.
Reminder, too, that Sandoval was so close to Scheana and Shay that he was actually a groomsman in this wedding during season 3. It’s telling that at that season’s reunion, Scheana is sitting between Jax and Sandoval — across from the other women on the cast.
Season 4
This is where things took the biggest left turn for Sandoval and Scheana (until Scandoval, of course). Towards the end of season 4, as the cast was preparing to go on their trip to Hawaii, Scheana confessed to Ariana that she’d been texting with Ariana’s mom because they were both concerned about her change in behavior since dating Sandoval.
Right when they got to Hawaii, Ariana showed Tom screenshots that her mom had sent her of said texts, in which Scheana said that he only ever looks out for himself and has an all-about-me attitude. *whispers* did she lie? Sandoval then confronted Scheana about the texts, and she apologized — but thennnnnnnn at the reunion, they fight about the texts some more, and this time Scheana held her ground. Let’s just say that this did age well for Scheana.
They moved on from the blow-up, with Scheana tweeting while the show aired that she would “NEVER EVER” try to break them up, but Scheana did note in an interview around the end of the season that there were things Sandoval did that were “unforgivable.” Conversely, Tom said that he’d bent over backwards for Scheana as a friend over the years and felt betrayed by her, calling her the new resident “shit-stirrer” in the group. Way harsh, Tai!
Seasons 5 – 6
During season 5, Sandoval was there for Scheana amid her heartbreaking divorce from Mike Shay.. One again, they were on the same side during the reunion.
Same goes for the season 6 reunion, where Sandoval defended Scheana to Jax after he accused her of not reaching out to him when his dad died, causing her to storm off the set as Jax raged on about her.
Seasons 7 – 9
Things were pretty steady for Sandoval and Scheana during this time. They were on the same sides of the season 7 and season 9 reunions (season 8 was that over-crowded virtual one… the less said about that the better!) which means that they often fell on the same sides of the larger group arguments. Reunion seating is one of our greatest forms of historic records of where things stood during any given season in the Bravo world — we all know that! And we also know that reality TV cast dynamics change up by the episode, so the steadiness of their alignment was very telling. When Scheana started bringing her new man Brock around during the post-pandemic season 9, Sandoval became fast friends with him and defended him as Lala questioned some stuff from his past.
Season 10
As we all know, this is where shit eventually hit the fan, but actually during most of this season, Scheana stayed close to Sandoval and Schwartz, seemingly pushing Schwartz to get together with Raquel, which once again caused tension between her and some of the other women in the group. That lasts, of course, until the affair news that rocked the world broke last March.
Scheana immediately jumped ship to stand by Ariana when it came out that Sandoval and Raquel had been having an affair. In fact, Scheana was famously with Raquel that night and allegedly hit her when Raquel confessed that it was indeed true. That night, Sandoval told Scheana on the phone that they were never even that close and discounted their decade-plus-long friendship, something that stung Scheana deeply. To say that the receipts, proof, timeline and screenshots painted a different story would be an understatement. They had a tearful conversation during the finale where Scheana basically mourns their friendship and said that they can never be friends again.
She later explained on her podcast that Sandoval had been in her corner and sticking up for her for 15 years, which is part of the reason why Scandoval had been so difficult for her personally.
Season 11
Scheana continues to side with Ariana this season, telling Sandoval in episode 3 that she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to him but that he didn’t need to block her when she reached out about his friend Ali’s death. She’s hinted that they share an emotional one-on-one moment together during the cast trip to Tahoe, and she got flack during that trip when she was snapped in the same group photo with a fan as Sandoval.
Things got even more complicated at BravoCon in November when Scheana was called out live on stage for hanging out at an after-party in Sandoval’s hotel room, but she claimed she just talked to Captain Jason the whole time (who wouldn’t?). Things seem to be all good between her and Ariana, though, so it appears as though that blew over.
Scheana and Sandoval’s friendship may be over, and it might not have ever been that crucial to the happenings on Vanderpump Rules, but it’s still a core connection in the group that’s been broken seemingly for good. It was good as gold while it lasted.
