Vanderpump Rules Producer Promises A Scandoval Twist During Season 10's Reunion

For weeks now, fans of "Vanderpump Rules" have been positively champing at the bit for news about whatever this huge Scandoval reveal is coming during the third part of the reunion. Producer Alex Baskin previously teased that this reveal is so momentous that it might result in some cast members not even returning for the already-confirmed eleventh season of the Bravo reality series, and with the third part of the reunion airing tonight, it's still anyone's guess as to what the reveal could possibly be.

Baskin spoke to The Hollywood Reporter just ahead of the reunion and confirmed that the reveal Is, of course, about Scandoval — referring to the months-long affair between cast members Rachel "Raquel" Leviss and Tom Sandoval behind everyone's back, including that of Sandoval's long-time girlfriend Ariana Madix. ""There are revelations and developments that left even our heads spinning," Baskin said. "We wind down the day of [filming the reunion] and then a few days later, there's yet another development. It isn't something the group witnessed at the time. So I think they're going to have to respond to it when they see it." 

The producer also revealed one specific about the secret that's sure to have fans buzzing: "The timeline evolves."

Baskin, for obvious reasons, really danced around any major specifics, but did absolutely confirm that it's a timeline issue related to a different Scandoval reveal: "The twist post-reunion does involve Scandoval. And it is a wrinkle to what was said at the reunion. So it is a coda, or in addition to what was said at the reunion."

To his credit, he did debunk two things. Not only does he confirm that Leviss is not pregnant with Sandoval's child, but he also shot down a theory about Sandoval's best friend and business partner Tom Schwartz, whom Leviss initially pursued romantically during Season 10. (Yes, this show does have two guys named Tom.) Essentially, what Baskin has to say is that, after the reunion, the cast members thought they'd learned everything they needed to know about Sandoval and Leviss' affair, but whatever's to come during the third part of the reunion throws a wrench into everything. 

"The group ended in one way, unsettled, but having hashed all this out," Baskin said. "And then they will come to find out, or in some cases have already found out, that there's even more to the story. It's not some earth-shattering development about the direction of the show or someone else involved in this whole situation. It's clarity and further diving in on what really happened versus what we thought happened, and centers around the things revealed in the reunion." 

As for Season 11, though, don't worry; things will work out one way or another. Though the producer's previous statements have indicated that cameras were taking a serious "pause" to give cast members a chance to recover after this reveal comes to pass, he did say they're still on their normal timeline — it's just not as fast of a timeline as fans might expect in a post-Scandoval world.

That said, Baskin did say that if cast members refuse to film together, things might get tricky, especially if Madix sticks to her demand that she not film with Sandoval. "It can't be a show with separate islands," Baskin said. "That doesn't work and it's not exciting if we have groups who agree with each other but never interact."

"But the cast does have the full expectation that we intend to make another season of Vanderpump Rules," he continued. "Not that we want to make a show that doesn't resemble one we've made for all these years. It's a show that has followed this group through everything they've been through to date, and we'll see them as they continue to move forward." As he correctly points out, Sandoval and Madix still contentiously share a home as of this writing, and when all is said and done, Baskin said filming should resume within a few weeks.

Perhaps most exciting was when Baskin was asked if any former cast members might make a comeback, to which he teased, "It is a distinct possibility that some past castmembers might make appearances on this upcoming season."

Split into three parts, the "Vanderpump Rules" reunion has been packed with drama since its very first part, which hit Bravo on May 24. Filmed a few weeks after the Season 10 finale, which picked cameras back up to get into the full fallout of Scandoval, this first part marks the very first time that many of these people have been in the same room, and there's an added layer of drama. After the news broke about Scandoval, Leviss alleged that fellow castmember Scheana Shay physically assaulted her after the two appeared on "Watch What Happens Live," and leveled a restraining order against her former best friend as a result — which means that, for the first two parts of the Season 10 reunion, Leviss only appears in a trailer "100 yards away from Scheana Shay" (as the chyron, hilariously, keeps reminding us).

With really only Tom Schwartz and matriarch Lisa Vanderpump in his corner, Sandoval starts the reunion off at a total deficit; when he starts to cry upon speaking, fellow cast member DJ James Kennedy snipes at him, saying he's weeping "crocodile tears." Things only devolve for Sandoval from there as his former friends and life partner unleash their fury upon him, all while Leviss watched, doe-eyed, from her trailer. Kennedy keeps trying to start physical fights, Vanderpump comes to Sandoval's defense more than once, and Kennedy ends up storming off at the end of the episode.

This was also the first reunion to feature one-on-one interviews with Bravo maestro Andy Cohen, who sat down separately with Madix, Sandoval, and Leviss — and while the first two shared their sides of the story, Leviss' was yet to come.

After the chaos that ensued in the first part of the episode, where the cast members mostly just screamed over one another, the second part contained some surprisingly emotional moments. After cast member Lala Kent broke down over her ongoing custody battle with her disgraced ex-fiancé Randall Emmett — whose sordid story was recently detailed in Hulu's "The Randall Scandal" — Shay had her own big emotional moment when Cohen brought her paperwork from Leviss intended to end the restraining order.

While Shay wept over how horribly Leviss betrayed her and everyone else on the stage — considering that Shay once gave Leviss a place to live after a devastating breakup — Leviss watched from her trailer with basically no emotion whatsoever, bizarrely laughing as she suggested to a producer that maybe she should have "written [Shay] a note." This isn't Leviss' only appearance in the second part of the reunion, though; during the cast's lunch break, she's visited by Sandoval, with whom she shares a stilted on-camera talk before he demands that they be able to speak without cameras and shouts at the producers.

After Leviss' interview was briefly featured in Part 2, where she says she was living in her "own reality" where there wouldn't be a fallout from the affair, she joins the group at the very end, after Shay has relocated to her own trailer 100 yards away. The final part of the "Vanderpump Rules" Season 10 reunion, which features the long-awaited jaw-dropping reveal, airs on June 7, 2023 at 9 P.M. EST on Bravo.