A shock new claim has surfaced about the future of Vanderpump Rules - after the show's next season was delayed because of the 'Scandoval' affair.
Last year on the show, Ariana Madix discovered that her boyfriend of nine years Tom Sandoval was cheating on her with their friend Raquel Leviss, now Rachel.
The whole cast of Vanderpump Rules was plunged into the roiling drama, which dominated the next two seasons of the reality series.
It emerged this April that filming for season 12 was on hold, with a source saying the cast needed a 'break' to 'decompress' after the intensity of 'Scandoval.'
Now, however, a Hollywood insider has alleged the delay is due to an entirely different reason - and she has made an astonishing prediction about where the Bravo show will go from here, according to The Sun.
A shock new claim has surfaced about the future of Vanderpump Rules - after the show's next season was delayed because of the 'Scandoval' affair; season 11 publicity still pictured
Thea De Sousa, who worked in development in Hollywood and has written a trivia book about Vanderpump Rules, claims the show will end after season 12.
A Bravo spokesperson denied De Sousa's claims in a statement to DailyMail.com.
De Sousa's book party was held this Tuesday at SUR Restaurant & Lounge, one of the principal settings of Vanderpump Rules, and multiple Bravo stars were in attendance - including Tom Sandoval himself.
'Bravo's still saying that they for sure plan on doing another season, which will most likely be the last one. And the reason why is because this show has gotten very expensive for Bravo,' De Sousa asserted.
'Every cast member gets a mandatory salary bump each season. So now we're up to Season 12, so you can imagine how completely just underwater that Bravo is in terms of paying this cast and that's been the issue since spring,' she added.
'That's been the reason why they didn't film over the summer was they couldn't handle the same contracts. So they had to start negotiating [with] people and trying to move people down from maybe main cast member to "friend of," which they had tried to do a couple seasons before.'
Complicating the situation even further, many of the cast are not the close friends that they used to be, and the series is said to be in need of new blood.
De Sousa alleged that before 'Scandoval,' there had been plans to develop a spin-off about Tom Sandoval and Tom Schwartz, centered on their bar Schwartz and Sandy's.
'It wasn't going to be Vanderpump anymore, but then Scandoval happened, so they did another season of Vanderpump off of Scandoval,' said De Sousa.
Last year on the show, Ariana Madix (center) discovered that her boyfriend of nine years Tom Sandoval (left) was cheating on her with their friend Raquel Leviss (right), now Rachel
Ariana started crying when Scheana Shay suggested she move out of the house she shared with her ex on an episode of the show that aired this April
'They were supposed to be cameras up already and they're still having [a] problem, not because of the show but because of just the landscape of reality TV and the payoff isn't as big as it used to be for Bravo. Best case scenario would be November, December worst case scenario, beginning of next year.'
'And then the least attractive scenario is they can't literally ever afford to do it again, but they are still promising that they are supposed to do a final season. They've just postponed it,' De Sousa continued.
'It was supposed to be cameras up mid-October and that's already been postponed. So that's happened about three times now where they've said: "Okay, we're almost ready," but they have not greenlit. This is coming from good sources that work on the show because they are all told when there's a green light,' she added.
'No one has refused to film with anyone else because they all want the show to keep going. I mean they all want the paychecks, right? And maybe they love the show. So the desires are from the cast, the problem again is Bravo paying them, that's it.
'I mean, there's definitely going to be tension. There's definitely cast members who don't like each other. But the rumor that has been going around that the cast is the problem, and it's definitely not. They're not refusing to film. Everybody wants the show to keep going, even Ariana wants another season of the show.'
She claimed: 'Many of the cast members have been with the show since day one and bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars per season. So now that they've got that high pay to come back for season 11, contractually, Bravo has to pay that plus a bump. The only way they can get out with some cast members is by demoting them.'
Lea theorized: 'And they will, like Scheana [Shay] might get demoted, and then they can pay them less. So this is all the contract stuff they were dealing with all summer. Who do we get to agree to go down?'
She alleged the demotions will be kept secret as 'when you do sponsorships and when you do things that are off the show, you really don't want to talk about: "Well, I got bumped down this season." You're just on the cast. That's all that matters.'
The new claims come from Thea De Sousa, pictured at the release party for her Vanderpump Rules trivia book at SUR Restaurant & Lounge with Bravo star Taylor Armstrong (right)
Tom Sandoval himself attended Thea's book party this Tuesday when it was held at SUR, which is one of the principal settings of Vanderpump Rules
Tom Schwartz levels Sandoval details amid his own new romance
At the end of this April, when news of the filming delay went public, it was claimed that the residual ill feeling around 'Scandoval' was to blame.
'Everyone needs a moment to decompress after two very rough, intense seasons. The cast is looking forward to a break from filming the show,' said a Page Six source.
Madix dumped Sandoval in March 2023 after she looked through his phone and discovered he had conducted an affair with Leviss.
As 'Scandoval' exploded, Sandoval turned into a hate figure and Madix became an object of widespread public sympathy.
Meanwhile Leviss was subjected to a deluge of backlash so fierce that she quit Vanderpump Rules and retreated to a mental health facility for two months.
She returned to the public eye that summer, and this February she sued Sandoval and Madix for 'revenge porn, eavesdropping and invasion of privacy.'
