Ariana Madix loses appeal to dismiss Vanderpump Rules revenge p*rn lawsuit
She's denied all claims of her sharing the sexually explicit videos with others
Ariana Madix has lost her appeal to dismiss the invasion of privacy and revenge porn lawsuit which was filed by her former Vanderpump Rules co-star Raquel Leviss against Ariana and her ex boyfriend, Tom Sandoval.
The court refused to overturn a lower court’s decision from last year that found that Ariana’s alleged behaviour was neither protected speech or a matter of public interest.
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The claims in the lawsuit against Ariana allege that she improperly obtained and shared sexually explicit videos of Raquel that she found on Tom’s phone. Ariana has previously declared that she did secretly access Tom’s phone without his knowledge or permission and copied the videos of Raquel whilst inside a bathroom stall.
Ariana has claimed she only small clips of the video to Raquel after she found them, and explained that she wanted to confront her with the video. However in the court ruling last year it was found that her conduct was unlawful and as such didn’t fall under California’s anti-SLAPP law, which is designed to dismiss lawsuits targeting free speech.
Raquel’s lawyer released a statement, saying: “We are pleased but not surprised that the court of appeal affirmed Judge Crowley’s well-reasoned decision to dismiss Ariana Madix’s anti-SLAPP motion. Hopefully, the defendants will now stop playing delay games and allow themselves to be judged based upon their admittedly egregious conduct.”
In the lawsuit against Ariana and Tom, Raquel claims that he made the “intimate” recordings without her consent and that Ariana shared them in an act of “revenge porn.” Ariana has strongly denied ever sharing the recordings with anyone else other than Raquel.
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In a sworn 20204 declaration, Ariana stated “I did not send the videos to anyone else. Nor did I share, display, or show the videos to anyone else. I did not send the videos to anyone else. Nor did I share, display, or show the videos to anyone else.
She claimed that Tom “forcibly grabbed” her phone a short time later and deleted the videos, and shortly after she texted a friend and told him that she no longer had the videos.
Ariana was sued with claims of revenge porn, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Tom is also facing the privacy and emotional distress claims in addition to a separate claim for alleged eavesdropping related to the initial recording.
He has described the claims against him as “vague”, saying that Raquel’s own behaviour was “open and ostentatious” in the context of a voluntary reality TV show.
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Ariana also claims that she found the video on Tom’s phone after it slid out of his pocket whilst he was performing, and that she was given it for safekeeping. She wrote in her declaration that it was “woman’s intuition” which made her check his phone. She claims she was “shocked” to find the recordings of the call, declaring: “I hurriedly took out my own phone and made two recordings of the FaceTime video. Prior to that moment, I considered plaintiff a friend and did not know that she and Mr. Sandoval were having an affair.”
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