TIGER Woods’ ex-mistress Rachel Uchitel has slammed Vanderpump Rules fans for “vilifying” Raquel Leviss after the reality star’s affair with her colleague.
In an exclusive interview with The U.S. Sun, Rachel spoke about her new podcast Miss Understood, with Thursday’s guest, country music legend Jana Kramer, and how they tackled ‘Scandoval.’
Rachel UchitelRachel Uchitel slammed Vanderpump Rules’ fans for vilifying Raquel Leviss[/caption]
GettyRaquel was embroiled in scandal over her affair with fellow cast member Tom Sandoval[/caption]
Rachel gave her take on the Vanderpump Rules’ cheating scandal in light of her own alleged affair with Tiger Woods, which catapulted her into the spotlight 14 years ago.
She told The U.S. Sun: “I don’t sympathize with Raquel, but I get what she is feeling.
“I know what it feels like to have the whole world discussing you as a villain and people being triggered by her actions.
“I am not dismissing what she did by any means. And our situations are different.
“But I am shocked after how far we have come in 14 years that people are still taking their issues out on the woman.
“That people feel so entitled to be angry. Letting women get beat up, get shunned,” the stunning mother-of-one added.
She also said she believes that, despite the public backlash, there is a silver lining to Raquel’s situation.
“They live in a reality TV show world and shouldn’t have done this unless they didn’t expect to be caught, but let’s be realistic, their ratings are up.
“Their paychecks are going to be up and they are more in demand than they ever were. This is a silver lining.”
Raquel has been embroiled in a cheating scandal with fellow cast member Tom Sandoval, who was in a decade-long relationship with her friend Ariana Madix.
MISS UNDERSTOOD, THE PODCAST
Rachel is all too familiar with the public narrative that comes with a cheating scandal, as she’s lived in the shadow of one for well over a decade.
She recently decided to do a podcast exploring people and stories that she believes are like her own- “misunderstood.”
Rachel told The U.S. Sun about her surprising friendship with Jana Kramer, who has been very open about her own heartbreak over alleged infidelity in her marriage with ex-husband, NFL star Mike Caussin.
“I’ve always liked Jana, I did her podcast a while back, and we’ve kept in touch ever since.
Both of us have struggled in the past with love addiction.”
Rachel said that she and Jana wanted to dissect the Vanderpump Rules scandal together.
“We wanted to talk about it between us from two people that have two different perspectives.
“We both agreed it was something that was triggering for a lot of people.
“So I think that we found that it was interesting that so many people in the storyline have been triggered and that’s where a lot of anger has come from and that was something that we found you know, was something that was a direct reflection from our stories.”
Rachel said that when she had first gone on Jana’s podcast, the country star “wasn’t too fond” of her, because “I was someone who triggered anger and hurt.”
After we had talked on her podcast, she actually apologized to me because she realized that I wasn’t somebody who had directly hurt her.”
Rachel said in the court of public opinion, “someone has to be a monster. Someone has to be a victim. People like to take sides.”
“People forget how hurtful that becomes to the people involved.”
HER TIME TO SPEAK OUT
After laying low for over a decade since her cheating scandal with Tiger Woods while he was married to Elin Nordegren, which made international headlines, Rachel said: “People have to stop blaming me and blame the right person. I can’t keep my head in the sand anymore.”
She said she realized “I don’t need to keep apologizing. I don’t need to be feeling shamed about it. And I know there’s a lot of people that are going around feeling shamed and walking around with their head down, and it’s horrible.”
“I felt like that for 14 years. And I don’t like that. That’s why I was like, Okay, I gotta start doing something.”
Rachel said that’s how the idea of the Miss Understood podcast was born.
So far she’s had an incredible line-up of guests with Jana, Dr. Drew and journalists Dax Holt and Perez Hilton.
She said has an episode with Mama June in the works, as well as Sarma Melngailis, who was the focus of the shocking Netflix documentary Bad Vegan.
GettyRachel was catapulted into the cultural lexicon following her alleged affair with Tiger Woods 14 years ago[/caption]
Rachel UchitelRachel’s podcast released Thursday features country star Jana Kramer[/caption]
SplashRachel, whose podcast launched earlier this month, has already featured a slew of interesting guests[/caption]
