Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix loses appeal in revenge porn lawsuit involving Rachel Leviss… three years after Scandoval

Ariana Madix on Wednesday fell short in her appeal to have a revenge porn lawsuit filed against her by ex-Vanderpump Rules costar Rachel ‘Raquel’ Leviss tossed out of court.

A ruling by the California Court of Appeals reviewed by the Daily Mail on Wednesday nixed the attempt by Madix, 41, to have the lawsuit from Leviss, 31, tossed, as it will continue.

Leviss claimed to the court that Madix nefariously acquired and distributed sexually-charged clips of her from the phone of her ex-boyfriend Tom Sandoval, 43, who Leviss had an affair with at one point.

Madix said in a prior declaration to the court that she had obtained the videos from Sandoval’s phone (without him knowing) using a passcode he had shared with her. She claimed she sent the clips just to Leviss to ask her about the relationship.

Attorneys for Madix said that her actions were ‘constitutionally protected activity because her alleged conduct concerned an issue of public interest about an individual in the public eye,’ with all being involved in a popular reality series. 

The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for Madix and Leviss for further comment on the story. 

Leviss, in opposing Madix’s attempts to appeal, argued that ‘her causes of action against Madix did not arise from protected activity, and even if they did, [she] had a reasonable probability of prevailing on the merits of her claims.’

The court said Wednesday it had come to the conclusion that Madix did not meet the ‘burden of establishing that the claims alleged against her arose from constitutionally protected activity.

‘The order denying Madix’s special motion to strike is affirmed,’ the court said in Wednesday’s ruling, adding that ‘Leviss shall recover her costs on appeal.’

The issue between the reality stars erupted more than three years ago, after Madix split up with Sandoval after learning about his cheating with Leviss.

The controversy – which had been called ‘Scandoval’ – had become a key storyline on the ninth and tenth seasons of Bravo’s Vanderpump Rules.

Leviss in 2024 filed a lawsuit against Madix and Sandoval claiming revenge porn eavesdropping, and invasion of privacy.

She told the court she had been a ‘victim of the predatory and dishonest behavior of an older man,’ who ‘without her knowledge or consent’ had filmed intimate encounters.

Leviss said in legal filings that she had been ‘humiliated and villainized for public consumption’ amid the series of events, which had left her ‘a shell of her former self, with her career prospects stunted and her reputation in tatters.’

In the aftermath of the incident, Leviss ‘later checked herself into a mental health treatment facility where she remained for three months,’ according to legal docs.

Madix, speaking with Scheana Shay on an August 2023 podcast, claimed that she had never ‘shown or sent that video’ and ‘did not hold on to it for any reason.’

‘That video was gone before I even called her on the phone,’ she said. ‘I saw about maybe five seconds of that. I wasn’t sitting there like opening popcorn.

‘I know that people know about what’s in it. It’s very simple. I’m not going to get into the details but there’s not a lot of details. It’s very straightforward.’