RHOBH Why were Dorit Kemsley’s assets frozen? Can she relate to Erika’s legal woes?

During last week’s episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, the girls were visiting Kyle RIchards’ house in La Quinta, California. While there, Dorit Kemsley spilled the tea about the current status of Tom and Erika Girardi’s legal woes, which Dorit can relate to herself.

Dorit revealed to Kyle and Lisa Rinna that Tom’s assets had been frozen because it was determined in court that at least $2 million was misappropriated.

Kyle and Lisa are shocked by the idea of frozen bank accounts, but Dorit is no stranger to frozen assets.

Kathy Hilton, however, is unfazed during this discussion and is busy stopping to smell the huge candle she brought as a gift to Kyle.

“When they freeze assets does that mean that you can’t touch your money?” Lisa asks. That’s exactly what it means.

“Imagine not being able to take out your own money from your own account,” Dorit says in confessional. “I had it done to me once. When PK had a lawsuit against him.”

We then get a flashback from a scene filmed in 2019, when Dorit had her bank account containing almost $30,000 frozen because her husband PK Kemsley’s name was on it. At the time PK was being sued by Nicos Kirzis over an unpaid $1.2 million loan from 2011. Nicos claimed that PK Kemsley had only paid him back the interest that had accumulated on the loan, to the tune of $250,000. The principal balance of $1,235,576.66 remained.

Nicos was awarded the contents of Dorit and PK’s bank account in 2019, which is only a drop in the bucket of what was owed. PK argued that he owed him nothing, because the debt was dissolved in a 2011 UK bankruptcy filing, which occurred the same year of the loan.

In the flashback, PK apologizes to his wife Dorit because she is suffering the consequences of actions he took before he knew her.

Around the same time, Dorit and PK were involved in another financial lawsuit. In 2018, their former business partner Ryan Horne sued them for $205,000 over not recouping the money he invested in Dorit’s swinsuit line Beverly Beach, which is still in operation. https://beverlybeachbydorit.com/collections/swimwear

Dorit and PK countersued Nicos for lost profits, and argued that he was a vendor, not a business partner. They claimed that he was delivering the items late, which caused them lost sales. Both parties have since dropped both lawsuits.

While Dorit can relate somewhat to what Erika and Tom are facing, she sees their situation as “bigger” and “scarier” than anything she’s had to endure. Later in the episode Dorit points out that it’s “impossible” for spouses to know all the of the business dealings that each other are involved in.

Crystal Kung Minkoff finds it odd that Tom Girardi seems to be in such hot water over a $2 million debt. Because he is supposed to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, she thinks he should be able to “just write the check making this thing go away.” Of course, Crystal was right to be suspicious, as Tom revealed in a 2020 deposition that he was completely broke. “At one point I had about $80 million or $50 million in cash,” Tom said at the time. “That’s all gone.

Later, Erika makes a dramatic entrance to the gathering. “It’s not okay, and it’s not gonna be okay for a long time,” Erika says through a pained expression.