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Garcelle Beauvais’ son Oliver Saunders addressed the media backlash against Raquel Leviss amid her affair with Tom Sandoval,Erika Jayne cursing at his brother, bot attacks, and the recent cheating allegations.
The 32-year-old, who’s been featured onReal Housewives of Beverly Hills and Vanderpump Rules, made headlines after kissing Raquel. And according to Oliver’s soon-to-be ex-wife, his romance with Raquel occurred before the breakup.
In an interview for Behind The Velvet Rope podcast, Oliver defended Raquel (who reportedly slept with her good friend Ariana Madix‘s boyfriend)against the media backlash.
“It’s not the right thing to do to somebody, but it’s like, she’s living her life. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s crazy that so many people wanna try to crucify her for this … as if they’ve never made a mistake, or they’ve never made the wrong choice before. It’s a human.”
He added, “It rubs me the wrong way how many people I feel like are so quick to judge or say negative things about somebody without really genuinely knowing the person.”
When asked about the hate toward Tom versus the hate toward Raquel, Oliver expressed, “I don’t know if it’s like a double standard, like a guy to woman type thing with a cheating [controversy.] I really don’t know what it is, why people are so fueled against her, as opposed to both of them.”
Oliver shared if he and Raquel keep in touch. “We do have [another] episode that’s coming up in the next week or two, I believe, [of when] I went to Pump with my mother and Lisa, and we shot at Pump, and then me and Raquel went out to dinner in Beverly Hills. So we spoke a little bit after that. We haven’t spoken [since],” he revealed. “We haven’t stayed in touch, no.”
The star claimed that he was separated from his wife when the Raquel romance took place. “To be completely honest, I was, I was separated at the time that we shot the show, even all those months ago … I remember after we filmed, I took a Uber back to my apartment. So it’s, we had been going through things prior to that, obviously, you know, the kiss didn’t help make things be cordial or anything like that. But we were separated and at the time just trying to, just trying to figure things out.”
He then alluded to his ex-wife’s cheating accusations: “When my son’s mother … went out of her way to say things about me and stuff like that, that weren’t true, Lisa reached out to me … because I was, I didn’t know how to feel about going to work … I didn’t know if it was gonna be like hostile, if some people were gonna feel some type of way … Lisa was like, listen, there’s always scandals. She’s like, I’ve dealt with scandals a million times worse. You know, she’s like, it’ll be talked about for a day or two and then everything is back to normal.”
He also claimed he “had no idea” how Lala Kent felt about him during his flirtation with Raquel.
“I think, you know, if we were ever to run into each other, possibly [Lala and I will] have a conversation and we’ll take it from there,” he continued. “If we run into each other again, that’d be great. I’d be happy to see her.”
Discussing his new employment at Lisa Vanderpump‘s Vegas restaurant,Oliver claimed he and his bosshad a talk right after he was hired.
“[Lisa] was like, you know, ‘I’m so happy to have you on’ and everything. And she was like, ‘but don’t mess with me. I’m a lion.’ And I was like, ‘oh, I never would. I never, I never would.'”
He later expressed, “I will say, Lisa, the reason why she’s so powerful, she’s so rich, she’s so smart. Nothing is on accident … I really don’t believe [in] any coincidences, especially when it comes to Lisa … Lisa definitely is a calculated, you know, she’s, she does her thing, man. She’s serious. She doesn’t play.”
When asked if he’d considering dating RHOBH‘sErika – who came onto him at his mom’s birthday party – Oliver answered, “My mother would, I, that’s, there’s probably … I have a got a lot going on in my own life. I will skip and dodge that one.”
He also was asked which would be worse: bringing Erika or Lisa Rinna to his mom’s home.
“I don’t even think I’d make it to the door. That is hilarious … I wouldn’t even make it to the gate. Mom isn’t having that.”
Addressing the previous scandal on last season of RHOBH– when Erika drunkenly told Garcelle’s younger son toget the “f**k” out of the room– Oliver suggested it was made into a bigger deal than it actually was.
“My brother wasn’t phased by it … I think that, you know, the drinks had been flowing. I’m not making an excuse for her. You know, she was out of line, but I don’t think that it was as crazy … as it came out to be. Especially because my little brother, like, I checked in on [him] after it happened and I was like, ‘bro, you good?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah … ‘What are you talking? Like, I’m not even tripping.'”
Oliver claimed it “wouldn’t surprise” him to hear the recent bot attacks against his brother were perhaps coming from Rinna or Diana Jenkins. “I don’t think that that would be the craziest thing to happen,” he said. “I guess we’ll, we’ll wait and see.”
He also shared why he left Los Angeles: “The reason that I moved to Las Vegas from LA is to get away from the lifestyle that I was living. And it’s funny, people are like, you moved to Vegas to stop partying. And it’s like, well, you know what? I just had to get out of LA. I wanted to be close enough to my family that I could still get back. But for years I had been praying and trying to do all types of different things to try to get my addictions and stuff like that under control. And I remember after my son was born, it was just like this light switch just changed.”
Vanderpump Rules season 10 airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on Bravo.
Erika JayneGarcelle BeauvaisLala KentLisa VanderpumpOliver SaundersPump RulesRaquel LevissReal Housewives of Beverly HillsRHOBHTom SandovalVanderpump Rules
