Of late, my iMessage inbox has been a long chorus of the same words: Horses and Scandoval. Horses and Scandoval! Horses and Scandoval! They vibrate in my phone, dramatic, evil, full of mystery. If an alien were to see my phone, they would think I was always talking about an animal and a … cad!
WARNING: VANDERPUMP RULES SPOILERS AHEAD! <3 among other things lol.
If you haven’t heard, Scandoval is what we call the latest, most stunning scandal from the Bravo show Vanderpump Rules. It sort of tires me out to even think about explaining (just read it here lol): but in short, Tom Sandoval, a principal character since the show’s inception, cheated on Ariana Madix, his girlfriend of 9 years. With Raquel Leviss, who is a castmate and was Ariana’s best friend. While scandals reign on this nightlife-centric show, this one rocked Bravo Nation.
Seems like maybe what one would expect from a Bravo show, but there’s something kind of extraordinary about the level of deception. I think it collectively surprised everyone that reality television can actually be so real. It seems impossible, but I think it’s true: not even producers could conjure this crazy shit.
Vanderpump Rules is, at its essence, a restaurant show. It started at Lisa Vanderpump’s SUR and has grown a franchise of Pump and Tom Tom and Schwartz + Sandy’s. Every character has worked in the restaurant. That each principal (Sandoval, bartender; Ariana, bartender; and Raquel, kind of server) knows how to freaking clock in at the restaurant adds to the disbelief that an affair could even be so messy. There are so many layers to work through: they work in the restaurant as reality television and through all that they still had an insane tryst??
Ariana is on a kick as a Baddie, doing spon con left and right and making soundbites for memes. I keep wondering at her having to perform as this Bad Bitch for media opportunities and work. I think about what her life looks like off-air, co-living in the same weird suburban home as Sandoval, sharing their space, processing real grief in real time. But maybe that’s not for me to wonder about. This all is projection, anyway.
Until a few weeks ago, Horses was one of the most celebrated restaurants in Los Angeles. Now, a level of reputational chaos that is perverse and not funny but also absurd.
Horses was co-owned, in part, by a couple: chefs Will Aghajanian and Liz Johnson. After what sounds like a demented marriage, they are now going through a divorce and the allegations are. Bananas! Allegedly, (trigger warning, content warnings, ALL WARNINGS) Aghajanian killed a lot of their cats. Maybe while masturbating? And was abusive and perverted and racist. You can read the story yourself.
Their former co-workers give comment and those work environments are not sounding fun! Clearly, it was a toxic relationship. Unclear how the legal battles will progress, but the lore around the restaurant has reached a point where we can never go back to when it was just chic. And we probably feel a little bit silly, or stunned, to think that would have continued to be chic if we never learned the truth. I remember saying that the food tasted like there were too many chefs! A woman knows…
You might be like, why is Rosa telling us this niche gossip?? It’s for more than smalltalk, sister.
I’m telling you this because of how profound and reverberating secrets within restaurants can be. Both of these stories are about couples that seemed institutional within their restaurant spaces, compartmentalizing darkness so fervently that it’s exploded into literally the NEWS. They have captivated public interest like the brain during a demented version of Where’s Waldo: there are so many places to look, there’s a strange relief when our eyes find somewhere to rest.
Re-watching Vanderpump Rules, it’s easy to remember how cheating rumors coming to light within the structure of the restaurant has long been a major theme. One observes season 3: Tom Sandoval had allegedly cheated on Ariana (!) with a mystery woman, famously and forever named Miami girl, who arrives at the restaurant to tell her story and set the record straight. Sandoval and Ariana, claiming this woman is insane, scurry from behind the bar, to the kitchen, to the smoking area, back to the bar, attempting to flee. Cornered, their comfort is the restaurant space itself. We can hide here! Or over here?
It's alleged that Aghajanian, kitties at home, would camp out at Horses when he was on leave from the restaurant. In the locker room, in a dumpster near the restaurant, who freaking knows. Though the relationship was clearly terrible, there’s something curious about the gravitational pull of a restaurant space: Johnson, in the dining room, explaining her restraining order to line cooks. Her estranged husband, in the same space when everyone is gone, inhabiting some strange wanting.
There’s an ounce of exhalation in learning these secrets because restaurants are machines but also containers of id. The surface of them is built as fantasy and concept and well-oiled cohesion, but underneath are often transgressions that operate from a luscious embrace of the temporary. While menus often change every day, archiving and documentation – whether a photo shoot or a reality show – happens more rarely than we often think. Restaurants rarely have HR and often the public record is gossip. Often, the collective’s interest in these spaces is limited to shows like the Bear – a public curiosity around kitchens, sure, but one that stops at the understanding that yes these spaces can be crazy!
As Orna, the therapist from the show Couples Therapy (and my one true reigning queen) says “desire is the most elusive thing … our most direct link to the unconscious”. If food is passion and making food is passion and drinks lower our inhibitions and nighttime activates something liberating and strange, when a couple works with knives every day, when we see a public-facing marriage go horribly wrong, there is some relief in knowing. Even if both these men are sociopaths, even if the women knew more than we realized, even if all these people are kooky and disturbed, the stories feel satisfying to tell because there is wonder in our own oblivion. We would have never known! Imagine if we had never known. Often, we never do.
BIG shoutout to Orna