The Aug. 11 episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills picked up right where last week’s left off — with Erika Jayne in tears and Garcelle Beauvais apologizing for asking one too many questions about her friend’s divorce and legal woes. Of course, it didn’t help that Lisa Rinna called Garcelle’s actions “f***ed up”, which led Erika crying even more and prematurely heading back to Los Angeles.
But what the ladies later discovered is that it may not have been Garcelle’s actions that sent Erika into a tailspin. When they woke up the next morning, they all got an alert about a Los Angeles Times article, in which Erika’s ex-husband, Tom Girardi, was being accused of running a “ponzi scheme”. Sutton Stracke said she read the article several times and it left her wondering whether Erika had been telling the truth about her split.
When the ladies saw that Tom was being accused of “stealing millions of dollars from vulnerable clients, including Indonesian children orphaned by a plane crash and a burn victim in the Pacific Gas & Electric pipeline explosion,” they couldn’t believe what they were reading.
Tom is also being accused of “improperly” funneling “more than $20 million to Jayne’s entertainment company”, and Sutton said that both Tom and Erika could be sent to prison if he’s found guilty of doing so.
The article was so long and there were so many new accusations that the ladies were left asking even more questions than the ones Garcelle “jabbed” Erika with the day before. So when everyone returns to LA — from La Quinta — Sutton called an emergency meeting, but made it very clear that she didn’t want Erika to attend.
Dorit Kemsley ended up hosting the get together, and when everyone arrived — four days after first reading the article — Sutton said she’d rather not be around Erika throughout her legal battle. She doesn’t feel as though Erika is being honest with them about anything pertaining to her split with Tom, and in turn, they’re being put in an awkward position.
But before anyone could really react to what Sutton was saying, viewers were hit with another “to be continued…”
Want more drama? New episodes of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills air Wednesdays at 8pm on Bravo.