Tom Schwartz and Tom Sandoval ‘Hit It Off’ as Roommates Who Met on Craigslist Years Before “Vanderpump Rules”

NEED TO KNOW

• Tom Schwartz moved to Los Angeles in 2009 to pursue acting despite his father’s hopes for a baseball career

• Schwartz met Tom Sandoval through a Craigslist roommate ad and credits him for helping ease his transition to LA

• Jax Taylor later joined them as a roommate, and the trio became central figures on Vanderpump Rules

Tom Schwartz was roommates with Tom Sandoval for years before they appeared on screens in the premiere season of Vanderpump Rules.

During an appearance on the More Life with Carle Radke podcast, Schwartz spoke about his early days in Los Angeles. The reality TV star, who was a staple on Vanderpump Rules until the cast shake-up in season 12, recalled during the podcast how he took a “leap of faith” and moved to LA in 2009, despite his dad’s wishes.

“My dad’s dream was for me to be a baseball player and then I quit playing baseball after he invested like five years into me,” Schwartz said. “Dad, I’m sorry.”

After graduating from college, Schwartz said he was “scheming” to leave his job as a distributor and move to LA to pursue acting. Once on the West Coast, he said Sandoval was the “first person I ever met” in the city.

“We met on Craigslist,” Schwartz revealed. “I was just looking for roommates. It was a Craigslist slash like a roommate seeker or something. And I made a little bio, and then me and Tom hit it off. And then I saw him. I was like, dude, this guy’s doing everything I want to do.”

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The pair became roommates, living together for years until they eventually appeared on season 1 of Vanderpump Rules together. When asked by Summer House‘s Carle Radke if he thought having a roommate with the same name was weird, he said it was “comforting” and they “actually hit it off.”

“Tom has done so much for me. I love that man,” he continued. “It’s a complicated, long friendship we’ve had, but he’ll always be family to me. That man has done so much — he was so integral to my transition into LA.”

It was then through Sandoval that Schwartz met Jax Taylor, who temporarily lived with them in their early days in LA.

“Tom was living with Kristen [Doute] when I first got to LA and they were very happily in love and I became really close with them, and then, like the way I remembered it, was like six months later, Tom was like, ‘Yo, listen, we’re struggling right now. What do you think about one of my buddies that I used to model with moving into the living room to help us, like, offset rent?’ ” Schwartz recalled. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, as long as he’s not too much of a presence,’ and then in walks Jax Taylor. And the rest is history.”

The trio were key figures on Vanderpump Rules, which saw the end of Sandoval’s six-year relationship with Doute, as well as Taylor’s on-again, off-again romance with fellow cast member Stassi Schroeder. Taylor went on to marry Brittany Cartwright, whom he met during season 3, before they filed for divorce in 2024. The show also saw the entirety of Schwartz’s six-year marriage to Katie Maloney.

“Those guys were all so helpful to me. They helped me get, like, my first pictures, like headshots. I was never really, like, a model. I’m a terrible model,” Schwartz said.

Read the original article on People