Things are heating up for Erika Jayne as she’s being investigated for her involvement in her ex-husband of 20 years Tom Girardi’s multi-million fraud and embezzlement charges. Now it’s looking like footage from the show, including unaired video and audio, will be submitted to the courts as evidence.
Instead of backing away from the spotlight, Erika kept filming for Real Housewives of Beverly Hills throughout her divorce and legal troubles, which started last year. Every episode she weaves a narrative about her marriage to Tom Girardi, but the truth still seems somewhere beneath the surface of what’s being presented.
Someone close to Erika Girardi’s has talked to multiple sites after last night’s episode aired, claiming that Erika was not actually made at Garcelle in the episode, but the show’s producers who had coached Garcelle to say certain things on camera based on things they overheard on a hot mic during a private conversation between Erika and Crystal. Lisa Rinna has also weighed in with tea via Instagram. In a text story Lisa reveals that Erika had “screaming fight” with a producer when they filmed the episode shown Thursday night.
Her post read: “Dang it . . . I wish they had shown the screaming fight between the producer and Erika last night on the show in La Quinta. Now that would have been epic TV. Too bad. Bravo Bravo F**king Bravo.”
The episode filmed during a girls’ trip to La Quinta where Kyle has a house, and where Tom Girardi owned a house with Erika that she had ever been to. She didn’t even know the address, and the other women did the research to find the house and found it had been sold in 2018. Erika says she had no idea that this happened.
During the episode Garcelle, Crystal, and Erika went on a desert hike while the other ladies went shopping. During a break at high altitude, Garcelle tried to get to the bottom of the issue with Erika, and she ended up saying more than she intended to.
Garcelle asks Erika if she had “any heads up” about any of the lawsuits, and if that’s why she divorced Tom.
Erika replies “No, I did not” after a commercial break. The teaser before the break was edited to show Erika nodding her head up and down to Garcelle’s question, which gave the impression she was saying yes, but in reality she answered in the negative.
Of course, the The Housewife and the Hustler documentary, which aired in June revealed that Erika had known what was coming down the pipeline with Tom because she had deposed early in 2020, months before she filed for divorce in November 2020.
She says Tom changed drastically after his brain injury from a car accident three years ago. She said he stopped talking to her, started using repetitive phrases, and forgot what they were talking about in the middle of conversations. She says he would rage at her if she brought up that he’s repeated the same story 10 times. She says she recognized Alzheimers in him because her grandmother had it. Tom was diagnosed with Alzheimers in March, 2021, three months after this episode was filmed. She had also known about Tom’s previous lawsuits against him. She acknowledged as much during a previous RHOBH reunion.
Crystal’s dad also had Alzheimers, so she understands how difficult it can be for caregivers. She shared that her mother had a rough time. Erika says that she’s been f**ked up mentally by Tom’s mental decline.
Garcelle then asks Erika if these things truly happened, meaning embezzling funds from settlement meant for the victims’ families of the 2018 Lion Air plane crash, did they possibly happen because Tom wasn’t doing well mentally. Erika says she thinks so. She goes on to explain that part of brain trauma is making decisions that you wouldn’t normally make.
She says his lawyers at the firm were calling her about Tom’s mental decline, but Tom refused to acknowledge it. “Such a bizarre ending to a career,” Erika says in confessional. “You know.”
When they are walking back, apparently Erika didn’t realized that their mics were still hot, and she shared with them, in what she considered to be a private conversation, that Tom was still calling her every day, but she cannot talk to him. She had her attorney asked his attorney to tell him to stop calling. For her case she needs to be able to truthfully say that the last she talked to him was the day she left.
When they get back to Kyle’s house, Garcelle brings up the fact that Tom keeps calling her, saying it’s the “saddest thing.”
Garcelle then shares with the rest of the group, who have returned from shopping, that “Erika shared, if you don’t mind me saying, that Tom calls her.”
Erika immediately says she does mind her saying that and that she feels betrayed. This is the part where a “source” claims that Garcelle was fed lines by producers about brining up the fact that Tom still calls her.
“So let me tell the f**king story,” Erika says, visibly shaken. “Tom calls me all the time. I won’t take his call. You got it out of me once, and you wont’ do it again.”
Garcelle is shocked by Erika’s anger, and says that Erika shared this information, unprovoked before.
“I was sharing a private moment, something that I haven’t said,” Erika says through sobs. “Sometimes, not everything is up to discussion. Just because someone tells me something about one of you does not mean I’m brining it up. I’ve been open. I’ve been very honest. So, I think that was dirty.”
Erika’s logic here is flawed since Garcelle did not repeat gossip that someone told her about Erika, but what Erika said herself.
In the moment Garcelle “owned” what Erika said she did, but in confessional Garcelle said she didn’t see it as a big deal. Erika was so upset she continued to sob and even started hiccuping and heaving. She was so worked up that she left to go to the bathroom where cameras picked up her gasping for air as she said to herself “I tried to be open and honest.”
Crystal said that it was a misunderstanding because she knew that Erika didn’t want to talk about the fact that Tom was still calling her, but maybe Garcelle didn’t know.
Sutton is confused about why Erika is so upset. She suspects something else is going on that Erika won’t talk about. “People don’t react to questions like that unless something else is happening.”
