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Erika Jayne is unpacking all the drama and headlines, starting with the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” Season 13 reunion!
“Extra’s” Megan Ryte spoke with Erika, who has been in the headlines, whether it’s her estranged husband Tom Girardi’s upcoming $15-million fraud case or the backstage fiasco surrounding her Las Vegas show.
The tension on tonight’s “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” reunion is palpable.
As for where she stands with the ladies, Erika said, “I’m good with Kyle [Richards]… I think. I’m just saying this as an ‘I think,’ okay? I’m good with Dorit [Kemsley], I’m good with Crystal [Kung Minkoff], I’m good with Annemarie [Wiley], I’m fine with Garcelle [Beauvais], and I’m okay with Sutton [Stracke]. I’m in the best place that I could possibly be, which is, sort of, like neutral ground. I don’t think I’ve said anything or done anything to… I don’t know. I mean, that’s today.”
“This is everything I’ve been wanting, which was just a place to take a breath, a place to step back,” Erika added. “The last two [reunions] were just, they were brutal. It was questions, hard questions, things, I couldn’t answer and a lot of pressure.”
Did Jayne get the apology she was looking for from the ladies? She answered, “I got as much as I’m gonna get. What I was really looking for was acknowledgment of, ‘Hey, this was tough, guys.’ This was a terrible time in my life, and I would have loved a little bit more understanding or at least just a little bit, ‘Let’s see and wait and not rush to judgment.’ And I also felt very mischaracterized in many ways, on the show, in my real life, like, it all sort of bled into this almost caricature of Erika. And I just was really wanting someone to see the human part of who I am.”
Amid all the chaos, Erika Jayne says she’s keeping her personal life private! She shared, “I’ve already done this publicly and I need a break.”
Jayne is “open to dating” after her split from Girardi, but no one is going to be introduced on the show anytime soon. She pointed out, “I think that once you bring a relationship, especially a beginning relationship onto a show like that, it’s a disaster. You’re doomed. Even the best of marriages cannot survive reality TV shows.”
Erika also weighed in on Kyle’s marital troubles and separation from Mauricio Umansky. She said, “They’ve been married for a very long time and to think that there are not challenges within a marriage, which is why I said to her in her home, ‘You are a successful marriage, you didn’t let anybody down, honey.’ This is called life and marriage is a very tough place.”
Asked if there were signs of trouble for Kyle and Mauricio, she replied, “I was so wrapped up in my own disaster that I truthfully could not see anything.”
The real-life legal drama surrounding Tom’s fraud case led Erika to come face to face with his alleged victims on Hulu’s “The Housewife and the Hustler 2: The Reckoning.”
Erika stressed, “This is a long-convoluted story with many layers, and we have to let the process ride. You can’t just rush to judgment when you don’t have all the information.”
Her two-part Bravo docuseries “Erika Jayne: Bet It All on Blonde,” which premieres March 6, might show the reality star at her most vulnerable. It’s a rare look at the problems behind the scenes of her Vegas residency as her life was seemingly falling apart!
Jayne opened up on what was happening off-screen while she was filming the docuseries. She said, “The competency hearing and run-up to that, and you see the public defender coming to the door and ask me, could I help. These things were really happening at the same time. There was a lot of outside noise. You would love to be able to give your full attention to your creative project, right? But I had these outside voices and these outside problems that were just digging at me that made it that much harder to focus and also stole a lot of the joy of being in the creative process. And cameras, you know, filming it, also, is another layer. It’s tough. From so many years of being on ‘Housewives,’ you know everything is being captured. So, if there was a moment I was getting a little flustered, you have to pull it back in.”
When asked what it felt like looking back at her old performances while prepping the new show, Erika reflected, “I’d look from the side of the stage and I ask myself, ‘Where is that woman who is that free and that confident? Where is she?’”
Despite everything she’s gone through, Jayne wouldn’t take anything back. She noted, “If I had to go through all that stuff to get to kind of who I am today and where I sit and the things I’ve been able to overcome and move forward from, it was worth it. I have to take somewhat of a detached spiritual approach of ‘This was all designed and meant for something better.’ I’ve grown from it, painfully, but I’ve grown from the entire experience.”