Right before Jen Shah was arrested on camera while filming The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, she was embroiled in another controversy over leaked audio of her abusing her staff, which she refers to as The Shah Squad. In the clip, Jen physically threatened designer Koa Johnson for not finishing a dress on time for a “very important vent. According to Kao, missing the deadline was not his fault because he says Jen didn’t give him the details in time to make the dress.
“We’re gonna put on boxing gloves, and I’m gonna beat the sh*t out of you in like two seconds,” Jen says to Kao in the audio clip that leaked in March 2021. “That’s how pissed off, hurt, upset I am. There’s no f**king communication. — You get yourself in more problems because you are lying. You’ve been lying to me since you f**king got here. I don’t deserve that. — How dare you f*8king do this sh*t to me. — I’ve done nothing but be good to you.”
Kao Johnson has claimed that he did not leake the audio, and doesn’t know who did.
Koa Johnson (source: YouTube)
When the issue was brought up on last week’s episode, Jen explained herself to Lisa Barlow. Jen claimed in confessional that she had hired Kao because he was from Hawaii like her, but had failed to do “normal due diligence” before hiring him. “I can’t trust anybody,” she told Lisa. “He took my kindness and repaid me by making it look like I mistreated him, which was not the case at all.”
Whitney was very defensive of Kao on the show during her confessional interviews, and Meredith pointed out that Kao’s posts on social media seemed to indicate that Whitney Rose was sending Kao samples from her skincare line Wild Rose Beauty when it was known as “Iris + Beau.” Jen burst into tears, calling the leaked audio a “set-up.”
More recordings of Jen were leaked to the Internet in April but this time her targets were her best friend on the show, Heather Gay, and Mary Cosby.
“This b*tch really thinks she’s like a f**king actress and sh*t. Like, why don’t you just be yourself and people will like you authentically,” Jen said about Heather in the clip. “I’m laughing so hard because that’s what f**king I tell her all the time.” Jen had also allegedly sent a text message to the person stating “Lisa is the only other person I can f**k with.”
She went in on Mary Cosby’s sense of style: “They asked me in one of my interview confessionals about Mary, and I was like, ugh, I’m sorry. Mary throws every motherf**king thing on. Her style, what is Mary’s fashion and style? It’s called let me throw every f**king piece of accessory, clothing, whatever, on all at once. I’m about to plant you in my backyard, put some f**king Christmas tree ornaments on you, and then, yeah, probably throw your a** in the trash when Christmas is over. Bye, Mary!”
