Katie Maloney-Schwartz Explains Why She Felt Hurt by Tom Sandoval After Their Blow-Up About James Kennedy
The Vanderpump Rules SURver says Tom Schwartz's best friend and business partner has "underdog-itis."
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On Monday's episode of Vanderpump Rules, Katie Maloney-Schwartz and Tom Sandoval got into a fight at SUR. Katie was upset that Sandoval had invited James Kennedy on their group trip to Puerto Vallarta and Sandoval was upset that he had to now uninvite James because of Katie. While Katie was still hurt by the body-shaming comments James made about her at Pride, Sandoval felt that James' subsequent firing was unwarranted. The tension between Katie and Sandoval naturally put Katie's husband, Tom Schwartz, in an uncomfortable position, as Sandoval is Schwartz's BFF and business partner at Tom Tom. Now, in a conversation with The Daily Dish podcast, Katie revealed why she believes Sandoval is on James' side in this argument.
“Sandoval has underdog-itis so basically anyone that's on the outs, not friends with everyone for whatever reason, very good reasons often, he loves to really befriend them," she explained. " [He] and James aren't that tight of friends honestly, but anyway, he just really went for me and wanted to blame me for everything and not hold James accountable, which is the main point of everything I was trying to make this summer when it came to James, is that no one has held him accountable. We've seen him mess up, do really, really s--tty things to a lot of people, apologize, laugh that he got away with it, and then do it all again. So are we going to keep the cycle going or is someone going to stand up and say enough is enough? So that's what I'm doing."
Katie felt strongly enough about the James issue that she even issued an ultimatum to Lisa Vanderpump: fire James or she would quit. While Lisa ultimately did fire James, not everyone agreed with the decision. "I got a lot of backlash for that also from my friends, like Sandoval, that I didn't expect, because he's not only best friends with my husband but business partners, so I thought that was a really bold choice of him to do that and then to label me in such a way that is not accurate. I'm not going and attacking innocent people; I'm not provoking James. I'm just putting my foot down and not tolerating this anymore because no one else is. So I was hurt by that because I had talked to him and I told him, 'I know you're friends with James. If that's your choice, good, great, have fun, but I'm going to separate that and I still want to maintain and protect my friendship with you because I do value that,' and so he wasn't really honoring that the same way, so that was hard for me, especially [because] I didn't want Tom [Schwartz] to be put in the middle of that either," she said.
Stassi Schroeder also shared her take on James and the drama surrounding his fight with Katie; hear that and more in the podcast episode above. And tune into Vanderpump Rules every Monday at 9/8c. Preview, below.