Tom Sandoval admits he made a mistake.
The Vanderpump Rules star apologized after receiving backlash for comparing the media scrutiny he faced for his 2023 affair with costar Rachel "Raquel" Leviss to the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial and the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
"My intentions behind the comments I made in New York Times Magazine were to explain the level of national media attention my affair received," Sandoval said in a Feb. 20 statement to E! News. "The comparison was inappropriate and ignorant."
Sandoval went on to add that he was "incredibly sorry and embarrassed."
Sandoval's backtracking arrived hours after The New York Times Magazine published an interview in which the reality star compared the public's reaction to his split with Ariana Madix—who broke up with him after nine years of dating when she caught him cheating on her with Leviss—to those of Simpson and Floyd.
"I'm not a pop-culture historian really," Sandoval said in the interview, "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?"
The 41-year-old also went on to assert he "got more hate" than That 70's Show alum Danny Masterson—who is currently serving 30 years to life in prison for rape—in the aftermath of his breakup from Madix.
At the time, a publicist present at the interview urged readers to take Scandoval's words with a grain of salt, noting, "Sometimes he says too much and the following day he forgets what he says."
And while Sandoval showed remorse for making those statements in the end, he didn't express regret over his affair with Leviss.
"I did what I did because I was in an unhappy place in my life," he explained to the magazine. "I got caught up in my emotions and fully fell in love. Like, for real."
Keep reading for a full breakdown of Scandoval and Leviss' cheating scandal.
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