A California appeals court has dealt Ariana Madix a significant legal blow, ruling that she cannot use free speech protections to dismiss Rachel Leviss’s revenge porn lawsuit. The decision means Leviss’s claims against her former Vanderpump Rules costar will proceed in trial court.
Madix had argued that the lawsuit should be tossed under California’s anti-SLAPP statute, which allows early dismissal of claims that arise from protected free speech involving public issues. Given the massive public attention surrounding “Scandoval”, the affair between Leviss and Tom Sandoval that ended Madix’s nine-year relationship, her legal team contended the matter was a legitimate public concern.
The court rejected that argument. While Leviss’s relationship with Sandoval may have been newsworthy, the judges ruled that public interest does not extend to alleged unauthorized recordings depicting private sexual activity. “Leviss’s status as a person in the public eye does not mean that every aspect of her personal life was itself a matter of public concern,” the opinion states. The court emphasized it was not deciding whether Leviss’s allegations are true, only that the case can move forward.
Leviss filed the lawsuit in 2024, claiming Madix accessed and copied sexually explicit FaceTime videos of her from Sandoval’s phone and distributed them to others . The videos allegedly showed Leviss in a state of undress and masturbating. A lower court judge previously rejected Madix’s attempt to dismiss the case, and the appeals court has now upheld that ruling.
