In November 2020, it was reported that Erika Jayne of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills fame had shockingly filed for divorce from her husband of two decades, Tom Girardi. Not long after, news broke of Girardi’s alleged multi-million-dollar embezzlement schemes at his L.A. law firm. His reality star ex-wife has been dealing with the fallout ever since, including accusations that she may have known about his reported endeavors to steal from clients and firm partners. Ahead of her show’s Season 12 premiere, though, Jayne got candid about “mourning” the marriage and life she had before all the legal woes began.
After Erika Jayne filed for divorce, there were accusations rolling around that claimed that the move was a “sham” to help Tom Girardi hide funds intended to repay the alleged victims. She has denied any involvement, both on and off Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, but fans and her co-stars have continued to question her side of the story. Speaking to Us Weekly, the 50-year-old indicated that her marriage to Girardi was very much real and that its dissolution apparently hurts to this day, no matter what he did or didn't do. She said:
I still am mourning that marriage. I think that gets lost in the sensationalized version of it all. This was someone I was married to for over 20 years and was with, like, 23 [years]. It’s difficult. There are real moments of sadness, real moments of — like when the holidays came around, you know, for Christmas, I would just remember how much fun we would have. … But what are you going to do with that? These things happen in life. They happen to everyone; everyone’s mourning something.
Tom Girardi was diagnosed with dementia and placed in an assisted care facility/conservatorship amidst the ongoing legal troubles last year, with his ex-wife seen sobbing on Beverly Hills at that time over his deteriorating mental state. But off camera, paparazzi had caught up with Girardi who (perhaps questionably, given his health diagnosis) told them that his wife knew what had been going on financially.
Erika Jayne previously shared on Season 11 of the show that she had still been in contact with her ex-husband, despite the situation that they were entangled in. And that's evidently still the case to this day. But the Bravo star maintained to the outlet that he is still not all there when they talk, saying:
Of course [I take his calls]. He’s not well, and so he’s in a state of decline and sometimes it’s good and sometimes [he thinks] I’m someone else. So it’s fine.
That's not the only issue the reality TV star is dealing with right now, though. She's currently fighting against a $50 million class action lawsuit that she's named in alongside Tom Girardi – in what is being deemed the “largest criminal racketeering enterprise” in history. On that front, she reiterated previous statements where she lamented being implicated at all, saying that the employees at the Girardi & Keese law firm should be “front and center” of the finger-pointing, not her. She added that all the heat has been “hard” on her own mental health.
Season 12 of RHOBH is slated to dig even deeper into the situation. Erika Jayne was heard in the season’s trailer saying that she, in fact, only cared about herself. She also questions Crystal Kung Minkoff over her siding with the victims for “cool” points, which has prompted the relative newcomer on the show to come out and explain why it was “very easy” for her to defend the supposed victims in question.
It's a sticky situation and likely one that will get even stickier, given how defensiveness didn’t exactly help Erika Jayne in the court of public opinion last year. Find out what she will or will not add to the narrative when The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills premieres Season 12 tonight, May 11, at 8 p.m. EST!
