Not One Man on ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Is a Good Guy

Vanderpump Rules became the talk of the internet in Season 10 with Scandoval. A cheating scandal between Tom Sandoval and Raquel Leviss shook the series to its core and reminded audiences of one simple fact: No man on Vanderpump Rules can be trusted. Every single one of the main cast members at some point or another has cheated on their partner, has made comments about the women and their bodies, and has just flat-out been gross in ways that are forgotten because of some other drama they’ve stirred up.

Sandoval is far from alone in this. His partner in crime for 10 seasons was Tom Schwartz who hid behind his “nice guy” act to say some horrific things. Then there were all 8 seasons of Jax Taylor and his misogyny hidden behind his outrageous antics along with James Kennedy who, out of the four, is the one who has had a “redemption” arc of sorts. Each of these men have done things that make their brief good moments tainted by how they’ve acted in the past.

James Kennedy, redemption?

When Kennedy first appeared on Vanderpump Rules, he was a busser at Sur and was dating Kristen Doute in a move that infuriated Sandoval. They were supposedly friends working on music together, but Kennedy started dating Doute (who was Sandoval’s ex-girlfriend) and it caused a rift in their relationship. For the following three seasons, Kennedy would prove to be a menace. He wanted to constantly fight with people, commented on Katie Maloney‘s weight as a way to insult her, and generally made the reputation of Lisa Vanderpump and Ken Todd tainted by having him working at their establishments.

A personality built on the ego of a spoiled rich boy from England, Kennedy’s problem is that he thought the world wanted to see him fail and would give his doubters fuel for their fire. When he was the DJ at Vanderpump’s West Hollywood restaurant Pump, he would constantly scream and fight with Doute while working, and it eventually led to him getting fired from Vanderpump’s restaurants in Season 5.

Kennedy would go on to constantly get rehired and fired again by Vanderpump as the DJ for her various restaurants, and it was all due to Kennedy seeing his relationship with alcohol was unhealthy and trying to get sober. He was, for two years, sober until Season 10 when he began drinking again. While Season 10 marked an improvement in Kennedy as both a person and a personality on Vanderpump Rules, it doesn’t negate what he did in previous seasons.

His comments about women were the worst thing about him. Which is why, out of the four men, he’s somehow the least horrible. Whether it was the Maloney weight moment or cheating on Doute and gaslighting her into thinking that it is her problem, Kennedy had a rough journey to become the “hero” of Season 10 and still, that doesn’t erase his past.

Nice Guys finish as Tom Schwartz

Schwartz went from the guy who Sandoval called a “battered wife” because Maloney was rightfully angry because Schwartz cheated on her and continued to hide facts about it from her to a guy who just constantly said horrible things to women and would hide it behind his “nice guy” act. This side of Schwartz really started to show its head in Season 5 in the lead-up to his former marriage with Maloney. When the two would fight, he would dismiss her criticisms as her being drunk and would berate her for anything she said.

During their joint bachelor/bachelorette party in New Orleans, the two fought over and over again because Schwartz constantly let people like Sandoval tell Maloney what she was doing wrong instead of recognizing that Schwartz was not a good guy. The worst part about Schwartz is that he comes across as soft-spoken, and sweet — and when Schwartz and Maloney would make up, they’d be very nice to each other, but it doesn’t change the things he’d say to her or what he’d blame on her.

In Season 10, Schwartz let Sandoval walk all over him, something he’d been doing since the start of the show. With the cheating scandal and all the lies, Schwartz was caught in the middle of his “friend” being a horrible person to him and the two, who have joint restaurants in Los Angeles together called “Tom Tom” and “Schwartz & Sandy’s”, are now reportedly not talking to each other.

Scandoval, oh Sandoval

When it comes to cheating scandals, Sandoval was relatively left out of most of them for his own doing. He was cheated on by Doute with his best friend Taylor and still forgave Taylor before he forgave Doute, if that tells you anything about his character. So when Sandoval became the villain of Season 10 for cheating on Ariana Madix, it showed what a “worm with a mustache” Sandoval really is. Much like Schwartz, Sandoval often used this nice guy routine to trick people into caring about him but Season 10 showed how much he was willing to gaslight people into thinking he was in the right.

Sandoval and Madix had been in a relationship since 2014 after Sandoval found out that Doute cheated on him with Taylor in their own home. He had, previously, made out with Madix once, and it convinced Doute that she’d been cheated on as well, but Sandoval and Madix both denied it. With Sandoval though, he was a seemingly doting boyfriend to Madix until suddenly, he wasn’t. One of the jokes of Season 10 to hit social media was that Sandoval claimed he did all the work in their home like making sure batteries were stocked. Madix returned the fire of that by doing an ad with Duracell in response.

He went from a man who was seemingly so in love with his girlfriend to a man who would blame everyone but himself for the mistakes that he made. Sandoval was, really, a wolf in sheep’s clothing and it all came to a head in Season 10 when he showed his true colors.

The worst of them all is Jax Taylor

From Season 1, Taylor didn’t hide how much he seemed to use women. He slept with his best friend’s long-time girlfriend. And when Sandoval forgave him by the next season for sleeping with Doute, he said that that was just how Taylor was. It would take seasons for him to be able to exist around Doute without a huge fight and even then, it was still tense. This all happened as Taylor would constantly cheat on his girlfriends, famously lied to his former girlfriend Stassi Schroeder about sleeping with a woman in Las Vegas and having to pay for her abortion, and just genuinely showed his lack of interest in hiding his misogyny.

When he ended up with his now wife Brittany Cartwright, he started a rumor that she and Doute were fooling around with each other, and he caught them. Cartwright and Doute both denied it and Cartwright begged him to stop, and it led to the “roast” of Taylor being awkward given Cartwright’s mother being in attendance and Sandoval joking about it despite being asked not to. Taylor’s behavior doesn’t extend just to his treatment of women though, as rough as it may be.

While Taylor has friends who are gay and part of the LGBTQ+ community, Season 5 showed his unwillingness to stand up for their rights against what would be his future mother-in-law. Cartwright’s mother came to town and while Taylor was being aggressive to her daughter right in front of her. When it came to Sherri Cartwright‘s views on homosexuality, he didn’t bother fighting her then. Taylor has had rumors about him and his past relationship with his former roommate John. When he dressed in drag with the rest of his friends for Schwartz’s bachelor party, Taylor tried to hide images from Cartwright’s mother instead of just talking to her about her clear homophobia. It led to a lot of controversies at the time, especially since Vanderpump is an outspoken ally to the LGBTQIA community.

Taylor also has a compulsion for stealing that often gets him thrown in jail with everyone left to bail him out. When everyone went on a trip to Hawaii, he stole a pair of sunglasses simply just to do it and was thrown in prison leaving his friends and Cartwright to collect the $11,000 bail money needed to get him out. And it was far from his only time in jail, something that Cartwright’s mother got over but not his past where he maybe kissed a man.

Everything surrounding Taylor is a mess, and it’s made that much worse by him using his holier-than-thou attitude to tell everyone else how they’re living their life incorrectly. So when Schroeder made him take a psychopath test when he joined her podcast, it wasn’t that surprising.

Trust no man on Vanderpump Rules

It’s easy to watch shows like The Real Housewives and think that there might be one man to root for. With Vanderpump Rules, there isn’t. Maybe Todd and Max Todd are the only two who at least have a somewhat decent head on their shoulders and they’re not part of the main cast. Instead, we’re left with a series of men who would rather talk down to women and be gross than stand up for anything important.