Raquel Leviss Of “Vanderpump Rules” Says She’s Dropping Her Restraining Order Against Scheana Shay
Yesterday, Bravo executives led by Andy Cohen definitely did the “We’re In The Money” shuffle while going into the studio to tape the 10th season finale of Vanderpump Rules. Obviously, the reunion will be a Scandoval showdown where Tom Sandoval and Raquel Leviss will answer for their sins after their months-long affair behind the back of their fellow castmate and Tom’s girlfriend, Ariana Madix. The reunion was taped yesterday, and the producers were definitely popping bottle after bottle during filming because the reunion reportedly brought an almost physical fight and a legal stunt involving Scheana Shay. If Lisa Vanderpump really did pay Raquel Leviss to have this affair for ratings, then Lisa is the new Suze Orman since she made a wise business investment.
TMZ says that Tom and Raquel were “annihilated by everyone,” even Andy Cohen and Lisa Vanderpump, during the taping. But not everyone got to drag Raquel live and in person. VPR castmess Scheana Shay wasn’t allowed to tape at the same time as Raquel because of the restraining order situation. Raquel claims that after Scheana found out about the affair, Scheana punched her in the eye, which Scheana denies. Raquel took out a restraining order against Scheana. So basically, Scheana was sealed shut in her hair and makeup trailer all day, missing out on the action. But in a weird turn of events, when it was time for Scheana to join the cast, Raquel had Andy serve Scheana with papers. The papers were documents stating that Raquel was dropping her restraining order against Scheana. Scheana’s lawyer, Neama Rahmani, doesn’t buy that for a second, labeling the attempt to squash the beef as just a stunt that has no legal impact, according to TMZ:
Scheana’s lawyer, Neama Rahmani, tells TMZ … “Rachel had Andy ‘serve’ Scheana with a document during the reunion, but the papers have no legal meaning.”
He says the docs were a request to dismiss a complaint or a civil lawsuit — but Raquel had already requested a permanent restraining order, “which is something completely different.”
Rahmani says there’s no way for Raquel to drop the current temporary restraining order ahead of next week’s hearing, either … and notes the docs handed to Scheana weren’t filed with any court.
He also went on to tell ET:
This was just another public relations stunt by Rachel and her team. If Rachel really wanted to make this go away, she would come out and publicly say the ‘punch’ never happened and she is sorry for all the harm she caused Scheana, Ariana, and her other friends.”
On the other side of the playing field of the “she said, she said” game, Raquel told ET that her attorney is, in fact, filing paperwork to dismiss the RO and not moving forward to take it from temporary to permanent.
“I can confirm that my attorney took my case off the court calendar Wednesday and is filing the appropriate paperwork requested by the court today to dismiss the TRO from moving forward after the 29th. We let the court know I will not be moving forward with a permanent restraining order. My team tried to work with Scheana on a mutually beneficial agreement hoping to get the TRO dropped earlier so we could film [the Vanderpump Rules reunion] together,” Leviss exclusively tells ET.
She continues, “The TRO was intended to provide a cooling-off period after I was punched but I didn’t want to continue with the permanent RO nor did I want to cause Scheana further agony and stress.”
On top of that, TMZ claims that the reunion got so messy that two cast members nearly got into a tussle and had to be separated. It’s not known which two cast members, but honestly, it could be any of them. In an Instagram Story, Andy called the experience “really confrontational,” “emotional,” and that “nothing was left unsaid.”
Andy speaks after the Vanderpump rules reunion #PumpRules pic.twitter.com/9RmI7b7Q2b
— Queens of Bravo (@queensofbravo) March 24, 2023
And I’m sure that Andy has already slid into President Joe Biden’s DMs to ask to be awarded a Purple Heart for “surviving” this reunion.
Pic: INSTARImages