Erika Jayne’s divorce to Tom Girardi isn’t moving forward right now, and on this week’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Erika Jayne revealed that she doesn’t mind staying married because it’s in her best interest.
Almost a year ago Erika Girardi filed for divorce from Tom Girardi. Soon after the filing, a deluge of lawsuits and scandals hit Tom and Erika after it was revealed that Tom was embezzling money from his clients. This summer, Erika was sued for $25 million because her company received loans from Tom’s law firm. Throughout all of this mess, Erika and Tom have not yet had their divorce finalized. Why?
In a preview clip for Part 2 of the Season 11 Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion, Erika Girardi explains why she felt she could not have left Tom earlier than she did. She says she had nowhere to go because she did not control her own finances and she gave Tom all of her paychecks, including her Bravo salary.
Before Tom Girardi’s fall from grace, he was a celebrated lawyer supposedly fighting for the vulnerable and victimized. Part of this hero clout came from his work in the historic “Erin Brockovich case.” He stepped in to help Ed Masry and his assistant Erin Brockovich take on Pacific Gas and Electric Company in 1993 for contaminating the groundwater of Hinkley, California. The case was settled in 1996 for $333 million, a record-setting amount.
On episode 19 of Season 11 (Over-poured and Over-board) of RHOBH Erika Girardi eatold castmate Kyle Richards that she had “zero dollars.” She is still renting million houses, but her financial situation is precarious right now as she has gone from extreme wealth to living in downgraded luxury and worrying about making rent. Although every word she says on RHOBH is picked apart and scrutinized, her recently revealed salary shows the franchise is a life-raft for her. A New York Times article published October 9, 2021, says Erika’s salary for this season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is “likely . . . more than $600,000.”
RHONY alum Bethenny Frankel has revealed that she knew about the legal and money troubles Tom Girardi was in for years because Tom owed her deceased fiancé Dennis Shields $500,000. Dennis died in 2018 from an overdose.
Tom Girardi has reportedly been living in an assisted living facility, but yesterday Page Six reported that he spent time with a friend having lunch at an expensive restaurant. After he left he was asked by a reporter: “Did Erika know anything?”
On Wednesday night’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Erika Girardi revealed that Tom Girardi’s family wanted to put him in an assisted living facility, what is colloquially referred to as a “nursing home.” She says she read about this in the news, and doesn’t want Tom’s family to place him in this type of care. She even accuses his family of abandoning him to avoid “the stain” of the lawsuits and scandals he’s mired in. Tom had since been photographed outside of an assisted living facility.
During tonight’s episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Erika reveals some shocking information to Kyle Richards. Tom had to have eye surgery after confronting a burglar at his house, and then her son got into a bad car accident while driving to care for Tom.
A major part of the narrative Erika gives on Season 11 of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills about the fall of her marriage to Tom is that she says his personality changed after he had a car accident in 2017. On episode 11, Erika also confirmed, with the help of questioning from Garcelle, that she believed that brain trauma may have led Tom to do the things he’s being accused on doing in the multiple lawsuits against him from his own clients. However, after the accident initially happened, Erika told a different story about what happened than she’s telling now.
On tonight’s episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, the ladies react to the bombshell article from the L.A. Times that dropped December 17, 2020. Titled “The legal titan and the ‘Real Housewife’: The rise and fall of Tom Girardi and Erika Jayne”, the piece revealed some shocking information and broke down what was happening with Erika and Tom into an understandable narrative. Although Erika had just snapped and broke down at Garcelle over something that seemed inconsequential, up until now all the women were giving Erika the benefit of the doubt. After they read this article, however, most of them started to question everything they knew about their friend and RHOBH cast mate.
Last year, after Erika Girardi filed for divorce from Tom Girardi after over 20 years, she claimed that she didn’t feel like his top priority and that he was cheating on her with a Judge. She dropped some receipts to her Instagram. This tidbit could be true, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that there was a lot more going on in the marriage and divorce of Tom and Erika Girardi. Let’s review Erika’s cheating allegations.