Monetary Benefits and Storyline Influence for Reality Show Participants

At the end of a quiet, leafy street in the Valley in Los Angeles, the reality TV star Tom Sandoval has outfitted his home with landscaping lights that rotate in a spectrum of colors, mimicking the dance floor of a nightclub. The property is both his private residence and an occasional TV set for the Bravo reality show “Vanderpump Rules.” After a series of events that came to be known as “Scandoval,” paparazzi had been camped outside, but by the new year it was just one or two guys, and now they have mostly gone, too.

“Scandoval” is the nickname for Sandoval’s affair with another cast member, which he had behind the backs of the show’s producers and his girlfriend of nine years. This wouldn’t be interesting or noteworthy except that in 2023, after being on the air for 10 seasons, “Vanderpump” was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding unstructured reality program, an honor that has never been bestowed on any of the network’s “Housewives” shows. It also became, by a key metric, the most-watched cable series in the advertiser-beloved demographic of 18- to 49-year-olds and brought in over 12.2 million viewers. This happened last spring, when Hollywood’s TV writers went on strike and cable TV was declared dead and our culture had already become so fractured that it was rare for anything — let alone an episode of television — to become a national event. And yet you probably heard about “Scandoval” even if you couldn’t care less about who these people are, exactly.

As “Vanderpump” airs its 11th season, Tom Sandoval reflects on his new public persona.

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