Howie Mandel and Andy Cohen are clearing the air after the former landed Tom Sandoval’s first big interview post-Scandoval.
“Don’t you respect me for that? Why am I a ‘jackhole?’” Mandel, 68, said during the Thursday, January 18, episode of “Radio Andy” after being asked about inviting Sandoval, 41, on his eponymous podcast.
Mandel gave the Vanderpump Rules star a platform last year to share his side of the cheating scandal that shook the Bravo universe. During the April 2023 interview, Sandoval alleged that he tried to break up with Ariana Madix before hooking up with their costar Rachel “Raquel” Leviss. (The now-exes called off their nine-year relationship in March 2023 when news broke of Sandoval’s affair.)
Following the bombshell interview, Cohen, 55, named Mandel the “Jackhole of the Day” on an episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen for “apparently [not knowing] what he was getting into” by sitting down with Sandoval.
“Here’s the thing, it was interesting for me because the way that you describe it is really interesting,” Cohen said on Thursday, clarifying his comments. “And especially given all the s—t that [Tom] was getting everywhere. The idea of him being given an opportunity to just have an open mic and say what he had to say, it actually wound up working out well, personally, for me, because then he could get grilled [elsewhere].”
He added, “It kind of saved the grilling for me later at the reunion. As it turns out, maybe I should give you the ‘Mazel [of the Day]’ instead.”
Looking back on the interview nearly one year later, Mandel confessed to Cohen that certain parts of Sandoval’s story didn’t quite add up.
“My daughter, Jacqueline Schultz, who I cohost with, throughout the whole thing was kicking me under the table,” Mandel recalled on Thursday. “I made her take off her ‘Send it to Darrell’ hoodie because she was on the other side, obviously. … A couple of times she wanted to ask a question and challenge [Tom] and I kicked her and I said, ‘Listen, I don’t know this guy, if you challenge him or if you attack him here, he’s just going to shut down and he’s going to go away and he’s not going to talk.’”
Mandel further speculated that Sandoval believed his podcast would be “unlike any other [outlet] because he knows he’s in an ignorant place where there’s no challenge and he doesn’t have to defend himself.”
Mandel — who previously squashed his beef with Cohen in June 2023 — has started watching Vanderpump Rules after going in blind to the interview.
“It’s like having a deposition and then watching the courtroom,” he quipped. “He said he broke up. He said he told [Ariana] and he told me a story about how she wanted to have kids and he went, ‘Are you crazy? I broke up with you.’ [And then] the next episode is him and his buddy [Tom] Schwartz walking into a fertility [clinic]. … Well, that’s not what he told me.”
The aftermath of the scandal will be explored during season 11 of Vanderpump Rules, which premieres later this month. While Sandoval and Madix will both be back, Leviss opted not to return to the reality show.
