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It was the reality TV scandal to end all scandals. So earth-shaking that it got its own hashtag: #Scandoval.
In early March, just a few episodes into the tenth season of Vanderpump Rules, it was sensationally revealed that Tom Sandoval — the worm-mustached cover-band lead and minority-stake West Hollywood bar owner — and Rachel (formerly Raquel) Leviss had been engaged in a secret months-long affair, all behind the back of Sandoval’s then-girlfriend, Ariana Madix, and their co-stars. Leviss — the retired pageant girl-turned-backstabber — had been recently linked to Sandoval’s best friend and business partner, the unlovable divorcé Tom Schwartz. She was also recently engaged to their co-star and friend, James Kennedy, a British DJ with serious anger issues. It was complicated and messy.
The scandal generated a stream of content: Podcasts, merch, interviews and deep-dives. All the while, fans dissected every detail of the “pre-Scandoval” episodes, open-mouthed at the giant secret no one else could see. By the end of the three extended reunion episodes, Sandoval and Leviss were confirmed as two of the year’s biggest reality TV villains.
2023 has been the year of the reality TV villain. But after a dramatic (and dark) few years, it feels like our perception of on-screen villainy is changing. In the right circumstances, is being a reality TV villain becoming a badge of honor?
Way back in January, The Traitors — a new reality TV franchise where contestants play a game of deceit in a Scottish castle, hosted by Alan Cumming — arrived on Peacock. The aim of this game is simple: Lie to as many people as possible in order to win $250,000. Kate Chastain, Below Deck’s antagonistic former chief stew, became the show’s antihero and main disrupter. She didn’t win, but by playing a villain caricature, she won over the audience.
More recently, E!’s House of Villains brought together ten of reality TV’s most infamous villains and made them live together and compete to be the “last villain standing,” all for a cash prize of $200,000 and the title of “America’s Ultimate Supervillain.” (What an accolade, right?) Contestants included Tiffany “New York” Pollard, Vanderpump Rules star Jax Taylor, and former Trump aide and Apprentice winner Omarosa. On Squid Game: The Challenge, the high-budget Netflix game show drew inspiration from its fictional forebear. But it included additional “tests” — conflict-provoking situations which saw the contestants stab each other in the back, often reveling in doing so.
Outside of game-show formats, 2023 has seen a return of good old-fashioned personal betrayal. On their eponymous Hulu show, the Kardashians showed us the fallout from Tristan Thompson’s various betrayals of Khloé Kardashian — including fathering a child with another woman at the same time as the former couple were expecting a son via surrogate. (Yeesh.) Elsewhere, Southern Charm had its own Scandoval-lite drama, when Austen Kroll kissed Taylor Ann Green. (She was good friends with his ex, Olivia Flowers, and the former girlfriend of his pal, Shep Rose.) Fans are currently watching the drama unfold as the show airs.
On Netflix’s bizarre influencer dating show Love is Blind, it was revealed that two of the contestants had previously dated and were hiding this from the rest of the group. (Crucially, their romantic matches on the show had no idea either.) In very messy scenes, Uche Okoroha implied that Lydia Velez was obsessed with him, and he was branded a “narcissist” and a “gaslighter” before dramatically no-showing to the reunion.
On Bravo’s much-anticipated Real Housewives of New York reboot, fans were introduced to six new women — ‘wives who better represent New York’s elite today. Real estate agent Erin Lichy and influencer Sai De Silva ended up coming across as mean girls in the first season as they repeatedly came for co-star Jessel Taank’s marriage after she had bravely shared her fertility and intimacy issues. But all was resolved (and forgiven) by the end of the reunion when the cast hugged it out.
Perhaps this is what defines the 2023 reality TV villain: A shot at redemption. Compared to some of the scandals we’ve seen in recent years, these issues are relatively low-stakes. The last few years of the Real Housewives franchise have seen a whole other level of drama, where FBI swat teams showing up to arrest cast members suddenly became part of the canon.
In 2022, Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah pleaded guilty to leading a nationwide telemarketing scam, before being sentenced to six and a half years behind bars. Tom Girardi, the estranged husband of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne, was also accused of stealing money from vulnerable clients — including plane crash victims and orphans — to fund he and his wife’s lavish lifestyle. And on Housewives spin-off Vanderpump Rules, there was Randall Emmett: The film producer and former boyfriend of Lala Kent was accused of fraud, racial discrimination, and sexual misconduct. (He denies the claims, which were also chronicled in Hulu’s The Randall Scandal: Love, Loathing, and Vanderpump.)
Generally, we seem to have embraced more personal reality TV storylines this year, rather than seismic true crime-style legal scandals. Right now, RHOBH fans are watching the lead-up to Kyle Richards and Mauricio Umansky’s separation after 27 years of marriage, which makes for captivating (and heartbreaking) viewing. Summer House fans are eagerly anticipating the next season, where they will see the aftermath of Carl Radke and Lindsay Hubbard’s broken-off engagement, called off just weeks before they were due to wed. (The breakup was caught on camera, because of course it was.) It feels like the reality medium is pivoting back to familiar territory: Conflict and resolution in romantic relationships and friendships.
Many of 2023’s reality TV villains have been easier to watch — and even celebrate? — because whatever they’ve done is nowhere near as bad as the (literal) crime scandals we’d become accustomed to. Whether it’s shady Housewives going below the belt in their confessionals, or even something as shocking as Sandoval and Leviss’s affair, these people have made mistakes, sure, but they’ve not exactly defrauded the elderly or stolen from plane crash victims. Their personal failings — lying, cheating, backstabbing, bitching — have at least created good TV, if nothing else.
Besides, one of the eternal realities of reality TV is that the line between hero and villain is very thin. If they can lean into it, and if they’re entertaining enough, the biggest villains can still hold out hope for a moment of redemption. Even Tom Sandoval.
