The high-profile lawyers leading the so-called “Reality Reckoning” are accused of trying to cajole a reality star into implicating the campaign’s primary target, the reality giant Bravo.
Along with Bravo alum Bethenny Frankel, attorneys Bryan Freedman and Mark Geragos noisily launched the crusade last year, promising to make NBC Universal — the company that owns Bravo — pay for its allegedly “grotesque and depraved mistreatment” of its stars.
The “Reckoning” appears to have made little headway since then.
Now “Vanderpump Rules” star Tom Sandoval tells Page Six that Geragos and Freedman offered to drop a damning lawsuit against him if he were willing to “point the finger at NBC Universal” and help them build their case that the company concocted a storyline that would humiliate their client, Sandoval’s ex girlfriend Rachel Leviss.
In 2023, reality fans were gripped by the “Scandoval,” in which it was revealed that Sandoval had an affair with co-star Leviss behind the back of his fiancee, Ariana Madix, who also starred on “Vanderpump Rules.” The cheating came to light when Sandoval’s cell phone, which contained the incriminating pictures and video, fell out of his pocket and was handed to Madix.
Leviss wound up suing Sandoval and Madix in a revenge porn action, claiming that Sandoval secretly taped her having FaceTime sex and that Madix sent her the footage to shame her. (Madix has asked to be let out of the suit, claiming that she never sent footage to anyone but Leviss, and Sandoval has denied that he recorded her secretly).
Now Sandoval alleges that sometime over the summer of 2024, Freedman and Geragos approached his attorneys Varand Gourjian and Tara Karamians of the Gourjian Law Group and offered a quid pro quo.
“My lawyer said to me, ‘They gave you an offer — I know you’re not going to take it — but I have to bring it to you: if you point the finger at NBC Universal, they’ll drop the case against you.”
He tells us that the lawyers asked if he “would be willing” to say that agents for NBC Universal had “put him up to” revealing the affair to Madix.
A representative of Gourjian Law Group told us, “We are unable to comment on settlement offers made to our client but it is my impression that, from the outset, Leviss planned on making the studios her real target, as evidenced by various passages in the lawsuit they filed [against Sandoval and Madix]. Tom Sandoval has consistently stated that the studios had absolutely nothing to do with the unfortunate events that unfolded.”
When we asked them about the claims, Geragos and Freedman said, “Tom claims he lost his phone. Tom claimed he lost his lawyer. Tom did in fact lose his motion to dismiss [the revenge porn suit]. It now appears he’s lost his mind.”
(Sandoval didn’t really “lose” his attorney. He fired an attorney he had hired to work on the revenge porn matter).
In the 2024 letter promising that the “day of reckoning has arrived” for NBCUniversal — which also owns reality-heavy E! — Geragos and Freedman claimed they had “a significant number of individuals” ready to tell their stories.
But they have yet to file any claims, and, as Page Six recently reported, they dropped out of representing “Real Housewives” star Brandi Glanville in a case against Bravo.
The lawyers had sent a separate letter to NBCUniversal telling the company and Bravo figurehead Andy Cohen to prepare to be served a suit over the way they had treated Glanville during her time on the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and “Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip,” including a sexually charged private message that Cohen sent to Glanville in 2023. (Cohen has denied wrongdoing, and a third-party investigation cleared him of wrongdoing).
Meanwhile, a separate case that former “Real Housewives of New York” star Leah McSweeney brought against Cohen and the network, among others, is ongoing. She is being represented by a different lawyer.
Yet another case brought against NBCUniversal by Caroline Manzo, in which she alleges that she was sexually harassed by Glanville while taping for Bravo is also ongoing. She also has a different lawyer. (Glanville has denied wrongdoing).