Tom Sandoval Says He & Ariana Madix Stayed Together To 'Keep The Optics Up' For Their Brand Prior To Raquel Leviss Affair

Tom Sandoval continues to try to make himself look better in the fallout of his breakup from Ariana Madix.

During the Tuesday, April 11, episode of Howie Mandel's podcast, “Howie Mandel Does Stuff,” the Vanderpump Rules star alleged that toward the end of their relationship and before the news broke of his affair with Raquel Leviss, he and his girlfriend of nine years only stayed together to maintain their brand.

"We built a business, we bought a house together ... we were a brand," Sandoval told the podcast host — who had never seen the hit reality show before — of his romance with the Something About Her Cofounder. “Like many relationships, it felt like it became more of like a best friends, family [thing] — sometimes roommates."

“There were a lot of ways where the relationship was just lacking the intimacy, the connection. We would travel more by ourselves than we would together. I would go to weddings by myself," the TomTom cofounder noted before adding, “I love Ariana. I still love Ariana and I care about her very much so, but we for a while had been sort of having our own lives."

"We always wanted to make sure and keep the optics up that we were like a solid powerful couple because it was part of our brand," he admitted.

When not blaming Madix for his cheating ways, Sandoval cited his midlife crisis for one of the reasons he hurt his partner of nearly a decade. "As I turned 40, I started to look at my life and it looked very bleak,” the bartender said. “I started to lose my optimism in life and my drive. I started to feel trapped. I started thinking like, ‘I don’t need this house, I don’t need this s***, but I feel like I need to make a change to feel motivated, to feel optimistic again.'”

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While Madix has stayed relatively quiet amid the Scandoval, she did release a statement on Instagram days later. "To say i have been devastated and broken is an understatement," she wrote. "However, i know that i am not in this alone. So many of my closest friends are also grieving this loss right now and reeling from this betrayal on so many levels. I am so f****** lucky to have the best support system in the world and i hope i can repay every single person for the love you have shown me."