Tom Schwartz had to rocket to another planet to truly grapple with the issues weighing him down on Earth.
The Vanderpump Rules star, 40, joined Fox’s Stars on Mars this spring in the thick of the Scandoval cheating drama, which was sparked by the discovery that his friend and business partner Tom Sandoval had been carrying on months-long secret affair with costar Raquel Leviss behind the back of then-girlfriend Ariana Madix.
But the turbulence in the VPR friendship group was just one of a stack of problems for the Schwartz & Sandy’s co-owner, who was little more than a year out from his divorce from costar Katie Maloney and who had been mired in several family health scares, including his father’s extended stay in the hospital and a cancer diagnosis for his little brother Brandon.
“I just felt like I had a little rain cloud over my head,” Schwartz tells PEOPLE. “It was very doom and gloom. I think I was a little too melodramatic, self-indulgent.”
He adds, “I kind of feel like I lost control of my life. I fell apart a little bit. Every now and then, we fall apart. … I wish I would’ve bucked up a little more, as my mom says, ‘Buck up.'”
And Stars on Mars gave him the opportunity to do just that. “This could not have come at a better time,” he affirms. “It was transformative.”
“When I came back, I did have this fresh perspective,” he says. “I keep talking about the overview effect — for astronauts, they go up and then they look down at Earth, and it gives them this fresh perspective, this almost like spiritual enlightenment. And I feel like I got at least a version of that. I really did.”
In hindsight, he realizes he “retreated into my own little bubble for the past few years, and [Stars on Mars] just kind of snapped me out of it. It gave me a newfound appreciation for my life in Los Angeles.”
On top of that, he and his castmates — including Porsha Williams Guobadia, Tallulah Willis, Ariel Winter, Lance Armstrong and Marshawn Lynch — got to play with the kind of gadgets and toys most people can only dream of, from a high-tech robotic dog dubbed “MARSha” to flamethrowers in Monday night’s episode.
Schwartz calls this week’s Stars on Mars challenge “one of the coolest missions ever.”
He teases, “We got to go in these caves and it was absolutely incredible. Spoiler alert: There are flamethrowers involved — and it was actually probably my favorite day of the entire mission.”
Schwartz is someone who admittedly can “get caught in these negative thought loops and … become hyper-focused on these doomsday worst-case scenario outcomes.” So the turbulence with his friends on Earth — especially Sandoval, 40, who “exploited” his and Schwartz’s friendship during the affair with Leviss, 28 — was a major motivator for taking a leap into the intergalactic abyss.
But ironically, the TomTom bar co-owner says embracing the futuristic environment of life on Mars has actually grounded him back in real life — especially as he heads into another season of Vanderpump Rules, which typically starts filming in the summer.
“It’s like my mind just wanders in the future constantly,” he explains. “So I guess one of my main goals for myself is to be more present. And on Mars, I was very present. I was absolutely in the moment, and it was a welcome retreat.”
But, he emphasizes, “I wasn’t running away from my problems.”
Stars on Mars airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox, and Vanderpump Rules can be streamed in full on Peacock.
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