Editor’s note and content warning • This article discusses suicide. If you or people you know are at risk of self-harm, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24-hour support by calling 988.
As two of her fellow “Real Housewives” try to confront Jen Shah about her bad behavior, she tells them she tried to take her own life when she learned about the @shahrevealed Instagram page — which the husband of a Housewives “friend” has admitted he created.
That, Jen says, is why her husband, University of Utah assistant football coach Sharrieff Shah, is so angry with Chris Harrington and his Housewife-wannabe wife, Angie Harrington.
The extra-long episode of “RHOSLC” — 75 minutes — also almost shows us how Heather Gay got a black eye. Almost.
Day 2 in San Diego
The Housewives and two friends are on their second day in San Diego, and it’s “beach day.” And several of the women are planning to confront Jen about her out-of-control behavior.
“The bottom line is — we have all dealt with this for a long time,” Lisa Barlow says, correctly pointing out that it began long before Jen was arrested and charged with fraud and money laundering. In a confessional, Lisa says, “I’m sick of it. I am there for Jen all the time. At the end of the day, I have a clear conscience. I’ve been a good friend of Jen, and it’s not reciprocated.”
Whitney Rose says that no one intends to turn their back on Jen, “but we’re just telling you the way that you’re treating us hurts. And she won’t hear it, but it’s unacceptable.” Jen doesn’t even remember pushing Lisa when they were on the yacht a day earlier.
(Fred Hayes | Bravo) Angie Katsanevas, right, greets Whitney Rose and Heather Gay at the birthday party she hosted for Sharrieff Shah.
We were on a break
Viewers see a flashback to a week earlier at Whitney’s house. In the hot tub with Angie K., Jen and Lisa, Whitney says, “At a very basic level, if Heather can’t validate my feelings and hear me, then I probably have to take a friendship break.”
At the house in San Diego, Heather Gay is trying to figure out “What happened? Who are my friends? Who are my enemies?” She’s hoping that, after a good night’s sleep, Jen will no longer demand that she choose between her and Angie H. “My loyalty for Jen throughout all of these circumstances should give me a free pass,” Heather says.
Enter Jen, who hugs Angie Katzanevas — with whom she was in near-mortal combat a few hours earlier — and apologizes again for pouring champagne on her head. “I wasn’t trying to disrespect you at all,” Jen says. “I was just trying to have fun. And I’m sorry. I didn’t know that you would take it like that.” However, when it happened Jen looked highly irritated with Angie K, who accepts her apology. It seems crazy, but they seem good with each other.
“It’s important to me to be a good friend,” Heather says. “But I think that we have very toxic relationships with Jen, all of us.” The editors helpfully insert some of the worst clips of Jen fighting with Lisa, Heather, Whitney and Meredith Marks. In a confessional, Heather says, “I love Jen, but the stakes keep getting raised. What before I just thought of was Jen Shah behavior — highs and lows — now seems to be a lot more destructive.”
Heather tells Lisa that she wants to confront Jen.
Beach games
All seven of the women go to the beach. Meredith wears heels. Really. They have a picnic and play beach games. Meredith is not thrilled. “Can’t we just relax on the beach and have a margarita?” she asks in a confessional.
First they have a “sand castle war” — Heather, Jen and Angie K. vs. Whitney, Meredith, Lisa and Danna. Heather takes it way too seriously, and Whitney acts like a child and runs over and wrecks the other team’s castle.
Then there are gunny sack races, which end with Jen essentially tackling Whitney. In a confessional, Danna says, “What a cheater! I wonder what else she’s cheating — just kidding!”
And then it’s bubble soccer — the women get in big plastic bubble suits, and seem far more interested in pushing each other around than scoring goals. Whitney, Meredith, Lisa and Danna are declared the winners of the beach games for reasons that are unclear, and Heather is pissed off about that.
Whitney, Danna and Angie K. go surfing. Meredith sits on the beach not surfing. Lisa, Heather and Jen go get something to eat. In a confessional, Whitney says, “I would take drowning in this ocean over going to lunch with Jen, Heather and Lisa right now.”
(Bravo) Heather Gay, left, and Jen Shah on"The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
The Big Lunch
Lisa, Heather and Jen go to a seafood restaurant, even though Jen says she’s allergic to shellfish and will “die” if she eats them. “I’m already responsible for the Chris Harrington web page, and now I’m going to be responsible for a trip to the ER,” Heather jokes.
Jen says she was “unsure of what’s going on” when she woke up that morning, and she apologizes to Lisa even though she can’t remember what she did the previous day. “Obviously I’m not a mean person,” Jen says. Others would disagree. Jen finally admits she was mean to Lisa because she was mad at Angie H.
Heather expresses her unhappiness about Jen’s ultimatum that she choose between her and Angie H. Jen blames Heather for their toxic relationship, pointing to Heather’s continuing friendship with Angie H. “You didn’t hold her accountable,” Jen says.
Heather is unhappy that Jen talked [expletive] about her at Whitney’s house. Jen denies it, but she’s lying — there’s video of her doing just that. “WIth you,” Heather says, “it’s ride-or-die or you’re dead to me.” That’s an accurate statement, despite Jen’s denials. Jen’s accuses Heather of flip-flopping: “You flip flop so much, you should be wearing flip flops.” Really. In a confessional, Heather says, “I can see her wheels turning. Lisa and I are holding Jen accountable, and I can see on her face she does not like what she’s hearing, and she does not want to hear any more.”
Heather tries to lead Jen through her problematic behavior the previous day, and Jen denies she gave Heather an ultimatum. Which she did.
(Bravo) Chris Harrington, Angie Harrington, Meredith Marks and Seth Marks on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
And then Jen drops a bomb: “I almost committed suicide. I tried to, OK?” she says. “Because your friend [Chris Harrington] is heartless and decided to drag me and my entire family.”
She says that because of Chris and his fake Instagram page, her sons were almost left motherless and her husband left without a wife. Heather and Lisa are stunned into silence.
In a confessional, Jen says, “I have always felt like I’m a pretty strong person. But when I found out about @shahexposed, it came on a day when there was just a lot of negativity dealing with the trial. And I got to the point that day where I was done. I locked myself in the bathroom, and Coach [Sharrieff] was so scared he had to kick the door down because he didn’t know what I was going to do. And Coach had to take me to the hospital. I was there for two-and-a-half days.”
“You guys have no idea,” Jen tells Heather and Lisa. “You have no idea that bullying is not OK.” Heather tries to keep the conversation about Jen’s behavior going, and Jen says, “Do you know how hard it was for me to even talk to you?”
It’s up to Lisa to be the voice of reason. In a confessional, she says, “The conversation’s over. I mean, the bottom line is, Jen just dropped something so heavy, Bob the Builder couldn’t even move it.” Heather wants to keep going at Jen, but she acknowledges, “Let’s stop making it about our issues. … Let’s be in a united front in supporting our friend, but in also recognizing her toxic behavior and being able to vent to each other about it.”
Jen acknowledges that people often don’t believe what she says. She says, “What the [expletive] do I have to say? … When I finally kill myself, everybody will be, like, ‘Oh, she was telling the truth?’”
Lisa does say, “I learned new stuff today about why you went to the hospital.”
Jen has been shown to lie often on the show, such as professing her innocence to federal wire fraud charges, to which she later pleaded guilty. (Her sentencing has once again been postponed; it’s now scheduled for Jan. 6.)
But experts warn that people who share that they have had suicidal thoughts should be taken seriously. According to the American Psychological Association, the more common lie about suicide is that someone is concealing that they have thought about suicide.
Jen’s friends might benefit from advice from the American Federation for Suicide Prevention, detailing what to say when a friend mentions that they have considered suicide: To show support, to let them know you’re listening, to keep them talking, and to suggest they seek professional help or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
(Randy Shropshire | Bravo) Whitney Rose and Meredith Marks on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Candle in the wind
The theme for the night is that all seven women dress up like Marilyn Monroe — complete with blonde wigs — and go out and party. “Maybe we will finally say how we feel if we don’t recognize each other,” Whitney says.
They go to a charcuterie restaurant. “We all know these women love a charcuterie board,” Whitney says. “So what better place to have dinner than a place that only served charcuterie?” Well, charcuterie and alcohol.
Angie K. asks what happened when Heather, Lisa and Jen went to lunch, and Heather gives a vague answer. “Do you feel like you got anywhere?” Whitney asks. “Like, it was good?” Her questions are mild, but Jen feels like Whitney is being overly inquisitive and intrusive.
“You want to know?” Jen asks sharply. “I told them … I tried to commit suicide and that Sharrieff had to take me to the hospital. So that’s why the Angie/Chris Harrington thing hit my husband so hard, because I did try to take my life. Is that what you wanted to know?”
(Photo courtesy of Bravo) Sharrieff and Jen Shah in an episode of "Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Jen turns the tables on Whitney and asks about her dispute with Heather, and things quickly go off the rails. There’s escalating yelling and crosstalk, but what it comes down to is that Heather maintains she doesn’t understand what Whitney’s problem is, and Whitney insists she’s told her repeatedly “and you don’t hear me. … Every time I try to tell you how I feel, you deflect and you get defensive and you leave.”
Heather encourages Whitney to express her feelings then and there, adding that Whitney has been “the source of a lot of stuff” that’s gone on between various Housewives. Whitney issues a strong denial, although it’s not untrue. She says that, the previous night, Heather and Jen spun what was happening to make her responsible. Jen is right when she says, “That’s not what happened,” but Whitney has had a way of making everything about herself since the series began.
Lisa, however, sees it differently. In a confessional, she says, “I know what’s happening here. If it doesn’t suit a narrative Jen and Heather want, that’s when you have a problem with Heather and Jen. It doesn’t matter if it’s based in lies. … If you don’t go along with it, you are the problem.”
Heather says she “would never intentionally do anything to hurt” Whitney, and asks the other women if she ever has. They don’t reply, so the editors insert a scene of Heather on the attack against Whitney earlier this season. “Every time I try to speak and make my point,” Whitney says, “you cut me off. You get defensive. You deflect.”
Heather says she’s listening. “No, you’re not,” Whitney says, despite the fact that Heather falls silent. In a confessional, Heather says, “I’m confused what planet Whitney is living on. This feels like Alice in Wonderland and I’m talking to the Cheshire Cat. … What am I not listening or hearing? What!?!”
“When I have needed you, you say you don’t remember the conversation,” Whitney says, circling back to earlier this season. Whitney — who admitted she was drunk at the time — insisted that, at a Utah Jazz game, Angie H. told her that Lisa had traded sex for business opportunities and basketball tickets. (Lisa strongly denies those allegations.) Whitney also insists that Heather was there and overheard Angie H.’s allegations. Heather has maintained from Day One that she never heard Angie H. say any such thing, and Whitney has continually accused her of disloyalty because of that.
(Angie H. also denies making the allegations. The only person who says she did is Whitney.)
Meredith speaks up at that point: “But Whitney, you said I started a rumor that I never heard, either.” (Meredith didn’t start the rumor, but she did talk to Whitney about it.) Whitney says she’s taken accountability for that. Meredith says she hasn’t. Lisa says she has. Whitney says she didn’t accuse Meredith of starting the rumors, just repeating them.
Then Whitney says she’s a “vibes girl,” so she knew Meredith was going to start talking about the Lisa rumors before she did. So … Whitney claims to have ESP. Meredith is understandably perplexed.
Jen tells Heather about Whitney’s plans to take a “friend break” from Heather, which comes as news to Heather. Whitney and Heather yell at each other with escalating anger. Whitney is mad at Heather for remaining loyal to Jen despite their epic fights. “So when she shows you more loyalty than me, it hurts me,” she says.
Whitney and Heather argue and argue and argue. Lisa comes to Whitney’s defense, telling Heather she has to listen to Whitney. In a confessional, Lisa accuses Heather of “trying to make it about everybody else but you. So you don’t have to deal with that. But we’re going to deal with it.”
Heather tells everyone at the table to “be quiet so I can hear Whitney.” Whitney replies, “That’s demeaning.” In a confessional, Jen says that “this is the time” for Whitney “where you need to use the voice that you’ve been trying to find for the last three years.”
Heather says that Whitney’s behavior is [expletive]. “That is why I’m putting up a boundary,” Whitney says “Because that [expletive] hurts me, Heather. It hurts. I literally told you that I am processing childhood abuse and then you lay hands on me and push me.”
We still have no clarification on Whitney’s allegations of childhood abuse. And Whitney’s memories of being pushed are faulty. She initiated that physical confrontation, drunkenly tottering and getting in Heather’s face, so Heather pushed past her to escape.
In a confessional, Whitney says she has “major trust issues,” adding, “I don’t think I’ve felt this let down by a friend before. I’m trying to be real and you are making a mockery of it by calling it [expletive] and immature and messy.”
Heather says she didn’t call Whitney’s struggles [expletive], she called the relationship between them [expletive]. Whitney refuses to accept multiple apologies from Heather. In a confessional, Heather says, “I feel absolutely betrayed. I don’t recognize why she’s acting this way. And I feel like I’m getting sick of giving her grace when it comes to the way that she’s betraying me.”
Everybody goes to the adjacent club to drink some more and dance.
Back at the house
The party doesn’t stop. Heather and Jen pull down their tops, rub their bare breasts against each other and laugh. (It’s blurred … but not altogether blurry.)
Jen gets in the pool topless. Then she rubs her bare breasts up against the window, a few feet from Lisa and Danna are inside the house. They all laugh.
Heather repeatedly exhorts the other women to remove their tops. Angie H. says, “Heather, I’ve never seen this side of you.”
In response to a question from a producer, Heather says, “It does not feel like college.” (She went to Brigham Young University.) “Because [in] college, we had a laminated dog put on our door if we had a boy there past 9:30.”
At 3 a.m., Heather is on top of Jen on a bed, simulating sex.
(Bravo) Somehow, Heather Gay is going to end up with a black eye on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
How does Heather get a black eye?
At the end of the extra-long episode, there’s surveillance video of Heather returning to her room in San Diego. She’s staying in a separate part of the house, with its own entrance.
We see Heather enter the room and lock the door at 3:28 a.m. At 4:50 a.m., someone is trying to open the locked door from the outside — we see the handle moving. Heather unlocks and opens the door, and the video flashes and ends, an editing decision to build suspense about who was there.
Flash forward seven hours, and Heather texts Meredith and asks her to come to her room. Meredith arrives at 11:34 a.m. to find Jen with Heather, who’s wearing big sunglasses. Heather takes off the glasses, and Meredith is shocked to see the black eye. And to see bruises on Heather’s right arm. “When did this happen?” Meredith asks, as a “to be continued” graphic is displayed on the screen.
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