A different version of the story? Katie Maloney saw Tom Sandoval‘s bombshell interview about his split from Ariana Madix amid an affair with Raquel Leviss — and she has some questions.

“[The interview was a] dumpster fire. I just had a hard time with the Ariana slander of it all and immediately starting off with a lie,” the Vanderpump Rules star, 36, said on the Tuesday, May 16, episode of the “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast. “Because he was talking about a wedding [and how he has been] flying solo in life and how she didn’t want come. Dude, she had COVID. She couldn’t come.”

Maloney claimed that Sandoval, 40, withheld information in order to make himself look better in the aftermath of the breakup, adding, “Why are you acting like she opted out? She was sick and she couldn’t go. Why are you lying already?”

The TomTom co-owner’s personal life made headlines in March when news broke about his split from Madix, 37, after nearly a decade of dating. At the time, Us Weekly confirmed that Sandoval had an affair with Leviss, 28, while still together with the Florida native.

Amid the controversy, Sandoval went on Howie Mandel‘s podcast to explain what led to his infidelity. The Schwartz & Sandy’s cofounder claimed that the former couple had conversations about calling it quits before his cheating scandal.

“We didn’t tell anybody, but she knew,” he alleged on an April episode of the “Howie Mandel Does Stuff” podcast. “She was trying to, like convince me not to be broken up … but that was not the case. She asked me that day as we were leaving about, like — because we had talked about fertilizing [her] eggs, which I never did. She was like, ‘So, what do you think about doing a sperm check to fertilize my eggs?’ And I’m like, ‘What? We’re broken up.’ … I was like, ‘We’ll talk about this later, I gotta go do my show.'”

Sandoval, who first hooked up with Leviss in August 2022, recalled growing closer to the model while filming season 10 of Vanderpump Rules. “I was seeing Raquel as often as I could. I know that sounds horrible,” he said. “And FaceTiming her all the time. And Ariana didn’t even notice because that’s just how separate our lives were. I had to actually tell her, ‘How have you not noticed how distant I’ve been lately?'”

The Missouri native went on to say that his split from Madix was a long time coming. “Like many relationships, it felt like it became more of like a best friends, family [thing] — sometimes roommates,” he shared. “There were a lot of ways where the relationship was just lacking the intimacy, the connection. We would travel more by ourselves than we would together. I would go to weddings by myself.”

Mandel, 67, for his part, addressed criticism against the podcast appearance shortly after receiving backlash.

“[Bravo fans] wanted to hear me cross-examine. They wanted me to grill him,” the comedian explained during the May 2 episode of the “The Viall Files” podcast. “The tough thing was, and I said to [my daughter and cohost Jackelyn Shultz], ‘If you hear something that you don’t agree with then you can’t challenge. There are no challenges on this particular moment. We are not challenging, that is not what this is about.'”

The Canada native revealed that he “promised” Sandoval’s team he wouldn’t push back against their client on the air. Mandel also offered to “edit” out anything Sandoval wasn’t satisfied with after the taping.

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“I would not do anything differently,” Mandel added. “As people have found out, one of the people who works for me is married to his road manager. … I [was] not going to put him in an uncomfortable position. I told him, ‘You want to speak, come on and talk.’ My point is — and the reason I wanted to [have him on the show] — that I still don’t understand [the outrage around Scandoval].”

The season 10 finale of Vanderpump Rules airs on Bravo Wednesday, May 17, at 9 p.m. ET, followed by the three-part reunion special.

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