Traitors Host Alan Cumming Didn’t Know About Scandoval Before Filming

Alan Cumming won over Vanderpump Rules viewers with a shady comment tot Tom Sandoval on The Traitors — but the host had no idea about the Scandoval lore.

“I didn’t really know much about Tom to be honest before he came on the show,” Cumming, 60, exclusively told Us Weekly at the 2025 Producers Guild Awards earlier this month. “A lot of the people on the show are new to me. I very much know about them now, but I didn’t know about [them then].”

Cumming clarified his knowledge of Sandoval’s Bravo series, adding, “I have seen an episode of Vanderpump Rules. But the whole thing about the girlfriend, I didn’t know. I get the research notes and I was like, ‘Oh wow.’”

In March 2023, news broke about Sandoval’s affair with Pump Rules costar Rachel “Raquel” Leviss, which led to his split from Ariana Madix after nearly a decade of dating. Madix landed opportunities hosting Love Island USA and starring in Broadway’s Chicago in the aftermath of the scandal, while Sandoval competed on Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test and The Masked Singer before The Traitors.

During the season 3 premiere of the Peacock series, which aired last month, Cumming poked fun at the drama by teasing Sandoval about how he wouldn’t like to be betrayed.

“When I say, ‘Do you think I betrayed you, Tom?’ that was all just someone feeding me that in my ear,” Cumming told Us about the research that went into interacting with the contestants. “What I have loved about this season is seeing how they brought people on who have history.”

He continued: “Tom has this history with the audience because everyone knows him as this cad. He is sort of the villain, in a way, of the show. … It makes for great TV. The show makes you aware of it and you don’t have to see all the shows. It’s actually a really clever thing to add on top of all the other stuff that they are doing. It’s all this history that is being excavated.”

Peacock’s hit competition show brings together reality TV stars from different franchises in a mafia-style game with a prize of up to $250,000. In addition to Sandoval, Housewives Robyn Dixon, Dolores Catania, Dorinda Medley and Chanel Ayan were cast on season 3, alongside Bachelor Nation stars Wells Adams and Gabby Windey, Summer House’s Ciara Miller and Selling Sunset’s Chrishell Stause.

This season also featured Survivor’s Boston Rob Mariano, Jeremy Collins, Carolyn Wiger and Tony Vlachos, RuPaul’s Drag Race star Bob the Drag Queen, Big Brother’s Britney Haynes and Danielle Reyes, The Biggest Loser alum Bob Harper, Zac Efron’s brother Dylan Efron, British aristocrat Lord Ivar Mountbatten, Britney Spears’ ex Sam Asghari and former WWE superstar Nikki Garcia.

Stause, 43, had her own opinions of Sandoval coming into the show — and has since weighed in on his approach to the competition.

“I thought it was ridiculous. I just felt like of all the people and all the minds at this table, do we really think Sandoval solved the puzzle in 0.5 seconds of leaving the room? No,” she told Us last month. “I felt like he was so loud and so wrong. It really felt like whoever he says [the Traitor] is, we probably know it isn’t. So I think it helped in my case, to be honest.”

Stause slammed Sandoval’s attempt to unmask her as a Traitor, adding, “He’s terrible [at playing the game]. To be honest with you, there was no other reason for him saying my name. He just said it so blatantly that he knew I was a Traitor. Of course he’s going to act like, ‘Oh, I really was just playing the game.’ To me, it felt personal and you probably can’t change your mind at this point.”

New episodes of The Traitors are released Thursdays on Peacock at 9 p.m. ET.

With reporting by Sienna Leone