Shaken, Not Shattered

AHEAD OF THE RELEASE OF HER NEW COCKTAIL BOOK, THE BRAVO STAR LOOKS BACK ON A YEAR FILLED WITH UNEXPECTED TWISTS AND TWIRLS

- LANFORD BEARD

By braving foot and back injuries on Dancing With the Stars, Ariana Madix has found new meaning in “fighting through all the aches and pains,” she says. Performing a silky, ethereal rumba to Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” on Nov. 21, the Vanderpump Rules favorite turned DWTS front-runner embodied sensuality and power nearly nine months after the world-rocking discovery that her boyfriend of nine years had been entangled in a monthslong secret affair with their close friend and costar.

Swift’s lyrics about a “bad, bad boy” and “shiny toy with a price” no doubt resonated for Madix, 38, whose new recipe book Single AF Cocktails (out Dec. 5) is also a gimlet-eyed examination—a postmortem, really—of her relationship with Tom Sandoval, 41, which ended suddenly on March 1 when Madix found an intimate video of Rachel “Raquel” Leviss, 29, on his phone.

Madix says writing the book was healing because “as much as it is difficult to put yourself in a vulnerable situation, I’ve always found that something that is really scary is always, ultimately, the way to go.” She also found power in her own written words. “There’s a lot of people who, for nine years, thought that I couldn’t do anything on my own, and so I love proving those people wrong,” she says, adding of her ex, “and I think he was one of them.”