RememberVanderpump Rules, that Bravo reality show about a bunch of West Hollywood millennial servers and bartenders slaving away at that restaurant owned by the rich British lady with the puffball dog? Premiering on July 12, 2025, the series was a spinoff ofThe Real Housewives of Beverly Hillsthat featured cast memberLisa Vanderpump, former actress and now successful Los Angeles eatery entrepreneur. The show became instantly memorable for its unique entry into the annals of reality television, with its premiere episode literally bleeding over seamlessly from the end of aReal Housewivesepisode.Brandi Glanville, aBeverly Hillscast member, exits her car at the end of that show’s episode and enters Vanderpump’s Sur Restaurant, where she confronts serverScheana Shayabout an affair Shay allegedly had with Glanville’s ex-husband, actorEddie Cibrian. Voilà!Vanderpump Rulesbegins.
The show became an immediate hit,with 1.5 million total viewers tuning in. Using the scandal of marital infidelity as its entry into Bravo’s programming lineup, the series would become one of the network’s biggest hits,scoring well with the 18 to 49-year-old age groupand offering an option for audiences who wanted their weekly drama served up (pun fully intended) by an under-50 cast who lived in tiny apartments off of Santa Monica Boulevard instead of sprawling McMansions in the Hollywood Hills.
RELATED:Andy Cohen on What to Expect from the Rest of ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Season 10
Cheating Partners Made ‘Vanderpump Rules’ a Hit
For its first few seasons, stories about cheating partners propelled the show and kept people watching. First there was mangy mixologistJax Taylor, who, in the first season’s startling finale, admitted to cheating on long-time girlfriendStassi Schroederwith Schroeder’s best friendKristen Doute. Then in the show’s second season, Doute had the tables turned on her when barkeep boyfriendTom Sandovaldecided he’d rather mix drinks with new cast memberAriana Madix. Not to be upstaged in the disloyalty department, in the show’s fifth season, Taylor would once again betray new main squeezeBrittany Cartwrightby creasing the bedsheets with Sur serverFaith Stowers. It seemed that as long as at least one cast member was engaging in hanky-panky with someone other than their designated partner,Vanderpump Ruleswould continue to rule the reality TV kingdom.
But as the show’s cast members matured, their bed-hopping antics slowed down a bit. Jax married the woman he had once cheated on and bought a house in Valley Village. Tom and Ariana pledged their love exclusively to each other and moved into the same suburban tract housing development as Jax. Even the show’s lovable, bumblingTom Schwartzfinally slipped a ring on the finger of career fiancéeKatie Maloney. Suddenly,Vanderpump Ruleswas no longer about overgrown adolescents making messes of their romantic lives in between deliveries of goat cheese balls to the tables of Sur’s hungry customers. It was now the worst possible thing in terms of reality TV - boring.
By 2021, the series was bringing in just over 600,000 viewers per episode, with an occasional jump in numbers here and there. When COVID shuttered the nation’s restaurants,Vanderpump Rulescompletely lost its anchor and barely sputtered along. With the easing of pandemic restrictions, the show entered its tenth season, but by now, audiences, as well as Bravo itself, had largely lost interest. The show was barely promoted by the network, and after just five episodes, the series experienced its lowest ratings,attracting a mere 648,000 viewers. It was almost a foregone conclusion that season 10 would be the show’s last. That is, until the secret weapon ofVanderpump Rules' success was again unleashed. It was recently revealed that Tom Sandoval has been stepping out on girlfriend Ariana with cast memberRaquel Levis. And just like that,Vanderpump Rulesis once again water cooler television. The show scored its highest ratings of the season with the first episode that aired following news of the cheating scandal,bringing in 879,000 looky-loos. In the week following the news, some ofTwitter’s top trending wordswere “Raquel,” “PumpRules,” “Sandoval,” and “Ariana.” Bravo hostAndy Cohenhas also confirmed that even though the season’s filming had wrapped before the affair was exposed,cameras for the show got rolling againlast week to capture the fallout in all its agonizing glory. Thanks to infidelity, those crazy LA kids are back, baby!
Infidelity Means Big Ratings for Reality TV
It’s not justVanderpump Rulesthat thrives on storylines about unfaithful shenanigans. There are, in fact, plenty of reality programs that have benefited from plots involving betrayed lovers, and it’s actually the one subject guaranteed to be a ratings-palooza for the “docusoap” genre. Look no further thanVanderpump Rules' source material, TheReal Housewives of Beverly Hills. In its first season, cast memberCamille Grammerwas traded in by husband andFrasierstarKelsey Grammerfor a younger version. As audiences watched the fall of the couple’s marriage, Bravo saw the rise of the series' ratings. The show became thesecond highest-rated first-season series of theReal Housewivesfranchisein all demographics, averaging 2.42 million total viewers. Just a short drive away via I-5,The Real Housewives of Orange County’sDavid Beadorwas busy eating potato chips in front of wifeShannonand fooling around behind her back during the show’s 10th season, making this installment of the franchise thesixth highest-rated cable TV program for the week of June 25, 2025. Meanwhile, on the other side of the map, CountessLuann de LessepsofThe Real Housewives of New York Cityshowed viewers that money can’t buy you class — or a non-straying husband — when the show’s eighth season ended with the discovery that her newly minted groom,Tom D’Agostino, had been caught romancing someonewithouta royal title. Ratings for the season were up 20% over previous years, helping Bravo finish 2016 withthe biggest on-air and digital growth among the top 10 ad-supported cable entertainment networks.
From ‘Below Deck’ to the Kardashians, Cheating Makes Reality Shows Prosper
Cheating stories aren’t limited to the lunching ladies ofThe Real Housewives.Bravo’s popular series about the lives of luxury yacht crew members,Below Deck, also got a big ratings bump in 2015 when the show’s much admired and much-committed bosun,Eddie Lucas,joined kooky colleagueRocky Dakotain the laundry room to do more than just fold towels. Caught in flagrante delicto, Lucas at first denied the impropriety, but ultimately copped to his lapse of professional and moral judgment. The incident cost Lucas the relationship with the woman he left onshore, as well as the respect of his peers, but it paid off big time for Bravo. The “Boom Boom in the Laundry Room” episode drew1.17 million viewers, making it the 25th highest-rated television program on August 05, 2025.
And of course, there’s thecheatin'-est show on cable TV,Keeping Up With the Kardashians. In its fifteenth season, the show about the family that never says “no” to a camera or a cosmetic surgeon was beginning to get stale, and its ratings reflected that fact. Then in November 2018, NBA playerTristan Thompson, the basketball ofKhloe Kardashian’s eye and the father of her child, was exposed as a cheater, causing a rebound in the show’s ratings,attracting 1.4 million viewers. Just two seasons earlier, little sisterKourtneyfaced infidelity problems of her own when she caught her partner, professional sport coat wearerScott Disick, doin' it up in Dubai with another woman. The two-part episode scored big for the E! network, making it thethird highest-rated cable program for the final week of May 2017.
While cable networks seem to be a hotbed of, well, bedroom antics, they certainly don’t hold a patent on shows that feature couples with a wanderlust for lust. Take, for example, ABC’sBachelor in Paradise, a series that puts already overheated singles in overheated tropical locations and practically says, “We dare you not to mess around and mess it up.” In the series' eighth season, two camera-ready singles,Victoria FullerandJohnny DePhillipo, found love among the palm fronds of Mexico — that is, until Victoria found a new love among the discarded leaves, a touchy subject addressed in the show’s November 2022 reunion special. That particular episode brought in2.5 million viewers, an 11% increase from the previous week. Who said cheaters never prosper?
Where There are Cheaters, There are Big Ratings
These reality series certainly weren’t the first to recognize the ratings bonanza that can result from a bit of clandestine carrying on. It actually started back in 2000 withCheaters, a gonzo-style reality program whose sole objective was to catch philandering folks in the act and capture the hysterical - and sometimes violent - aftermath. This program, hosted by the intrepidJoey Greco, ran for 16 years in syndication, and episodes of the show can be still be found on late-night television. But whileCheaterswas exactly about what its title said it was, there’s something more satisfying with shows likeVanderpump RulesorThe Real Housewiveswhere the cheating comes as a surprise plot twist rather than being the plot itself. And that, in no small part, is why these twists tend to vault viewership over the high bar.
Audiences don’t tune into reality shows simply to watch cast members carry designer purses or sit at fancy restaurant tables and stare at watercress salads. No, viewers want the big, bad stuff, and it doesn’t get much bigger or badder than adultery, betrayal, and two-timing. For better or for worse, cheating turns on the TV sets, and it looks like, at least for a little while, thanks to Tom and Raquel’s ribald romping,Vanderpump Ruleswill again be ruling cable TV.
