As if reality TV villain Tom Sandoval could dig the hole he finds himself in any deeper at this point, the Scandoval cheater-heard-'round-the-world outdid himself by drawing a rather cringe comparison centered on his infamous liaison's cultural impact in a New York Times profile published Tuesday.

When asked why he thought Scandoval — the salacious scandal in which he cheated on his longtime girlfriend Ariana Madix with fellow Vanderpump Rules reality star (and Madix's best friend) Raquel Leviss — received so much attention, Sandoval drew a troubling analogy.

“I’m not a pop-culture historian really,” Sandoval explained, “but I witnessed the O.J. Simpson thing and George Floyd and all these big things, which is really weird to compare this to that, I think, but do you think in a weird way it’s a little bit the same?”

Oh Tom. If only you had stopped yourself at “which is really weird to compare this to that”. Even for a guy with a history of poor decision making, comparing a trashy reality TV show affair to the nationwide reckoning about racism and police brutality following George Floyd's death was a stunningly bad move, to say the very least.

Sandoval and Bravo's PR teams appeared to go into crisis mode rather quickly after this.

The New York Times reporter even tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I think I knew what he meant. He was trying to express the oddity of becoming the symbolic center of a nationwide discussion and a major news story; what he communicated instead was something more honest, which is just how much the experience had made him lose perspective,” the article read.

Rylie, a member of Sandoval's new PR team present at the time of Sandoval's cringe statement, said shortly afterward that “sometimes he says too much.” She then added, “and the following day forgets what he says.”

The article further reveals that Rylie's boss, Sandoval's publicist, wrote a text to the reporter the next day cancelling a follow-up appointment. “He'd [Sandoval] rather you don't attend today. He's not feeling the best,” the note read. The reporter also got calls from a Vanderpump Rules executive producer and Bravo publicist inquiring about what Sandoval said concerning O.J. Simpson and George Floyd.

The general consensus was that Sandoval wasn't ready for this and they delayed letting him speak to the reporter again.

But the damage has been done at this point. Tom Sandoval‘s obliviousness about the optics of his words will offend many and stir more controversy surrounding Scandoval. Then again, that pretty much describes all the reality TV drama on Vanderpump Rules these days, so maybe Bravo doesn't need to go into crisis mode after all. Maybe Sandoval just needs to stop being given a pulpit.