Ariana Madix and Rachel “Raquel” Leviss‘ legal battle will continue to move forward.
On Wednesday (August 5), People reported that the 41-year-old Emmy-nominated host of Love Island USA lost her appeal to have the revenge porn lawsuit against her filed by her 31-year-old former Vanderpump Rules co-star dismissed.
If you forgot, Rachel filed the suit against Ariana back in 2024, a year after her headline-making affair with Tom Sandoval came to light in March 2023. The affair came as a huge shock to the VPR group and fans across the world as Rachel was close friends with Ariana, who had been in a relationship with Tom, now 43, for nearly a decade at the time. The entire situation was dubbed “Scandoval.”
“Madix learned of the affair when she found sexually explicit videos of Leviss on Sandoval’s cell phone, which Madix then recorded and sent to Leviss,” the court documents read. “After the affair became public, Leviss filed suit against Madix for Madix’s alleged conduct in accessing, copying, and disseminating the videos.”
Ariana filed an appeal in the case, citing that she only sent the photos back to Rachel and did not distribute them for public consumption.
A Los Angeles judge has now ruled to strike down this appeal, saying “she failed to meet her burden of establishing that the claims alleged against her arose from constitutionally protected activity.”
However, in her lawsuit, Rachel claims that Ariana “obtained these videos from Sandoval’s cell phone without his authorization,” and “distributed and disseminated them to others, including but not limited to Madix herself, Leviss, and other individuals whose identities are not currently known to Leviss.”
She also accused Ariana of sharing the explicit content with “individuals” working for Bravo. Ariana’s legal team had argued in the appeal that the affair was “a matter of public interest.”
Shortly after Rachel filed the lawsuit, Lisa Vanderpump quickly came to Ariana‘s defense.
The post Ariana Madix Loses Appeal to Have Rachel Leviss’ Revenge Porn Lawsuit Dismissed appeared first on Just Jared – Celebrity News and Gossip | Entertainment.
