Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval is opening up on his time as a male model, and it appears as if things weren’t so great in his career. Tom opened up on his difficult past in modeling in a recent interview with Danny Pellegrino (via People ). The reality star described how much harassment he had to deal with and how creepy situations he was in were, and how the modeling world is very different for men and women.
According to Tom, male models, in his experience, were treated much differently than the women when it came to privacy. The Tom Tom owner described how he felt so uncomfortable when it came time to change, and he was scoffed at if he requested to change in private.
“The girl would get a dressing room and a robe if she was in a bathing suit and lingerie. And a guy would have to change naked next to the clothing rack. This was standard for a shoot. Even runway shows… the guys were like, ‘You need to change next to a clothing rack.’ The stylists is like, watching you change buck naked. ‘Let me adjust that underwear,’” he remarked.
Tom noted that if he wanted to change in private, he was bullied by those around him, which made him feel extremely uncomfortable.
It wasn’t just privacy that was an issue, as Tom described feeling harassed during his long career in modeling.
“I dealt with so much f***ing harassment and so much creepiness,” he commented. “In my experience, 15 f***ing years of experience, in every major market — Chicago, L.A., New York, Miami — at 10 agencies across the U.S., with [female models], they were always paid more, treated far better. If they were young, they had a parent with them. They make more, they’re treated better, they’re put way more on a pedestal. And I don’t disagree with that.”
It appears as if Tom wanted the same amount of respect and privacy that female models were getting, and agreed that the women were being treated the right way.
When asked about inappropriate touching in the industry, Tom had no problem speaking the truth. The former model noted that fondling was definitely an issue and that some photographers preferred to work with younger models because they were more naive as to the appropriateness of it all.
To see more from Tom, watch Vanderpump Rules Season 7 every Monday night at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.
