At her sentencing last week, Jen Shah apologized, appeared contrite and basically begged the judge to sentence her to only three years in prison after she pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges. In the Season 3 finale of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” Jen loudly and profanely blamed all of her legal troubles on Stuart Smith, her former assistant and business partner.
Smith, who was arrested and charged with Jen in March 2021, changed his plea to guilty in November 2021 and gave prosecutors evidence against her.
“What’s been the hardest for me this week is to learn that [Smith] has turned on me,” Jen says, just before she also pleads guilty in July 2022 — after she “read all the [expletive] that he said. Stuart’s a piece of [expletive]. ... You’re an evil mother-[expletive]. and you played me. I would not be in this thing at all if it wasn’t for Stuart.”
It’s worth noting that Jen doesn’t say that Stuart lied, just that his testimony buried her.
(Bravo) Jen Shah and Stuart Smith on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
“What she’s telling us, I can hardly believe,” Heather Gay says in a confessional. “How is Stuart — the guy that chased her snacks and ordered her waxing appointments and bought her tampons — how is he also running the scheme and framing her and she doesn’t know?”
Jen says that she’s the victim here, and Stuart’s actions make it “so hard to, like, trust people.”
And, in a confessional, Jen still implies that she’s being falsely accused. “There’s so much I wish I could say to the public,” she says. Asked by a producer if she’s “ready to tells us the real story now,” Jen does not reply.
It’s the least surprising surprise ending ever in a “Real Housewives” season finale. Jen pleaded guilty a couple months before Season 3 started airing, and it’s difficult to believe that anyone who watches the show didn’t know this was coming.
Book cover unveiling
The episode opens with what is clearly a made-for-“RHOSLC” event — a party to celebrate the unveiling of the cover of Heather’s forthcoming book, titled “Bad Mormon.” Not the unveiling of the book, which is scheduled to publish on Feb. 7, just the cover.
“It’s a pretty big deal,” Heather says. (It’s really not.)
(Randy Shropshire | Bravo) Heather Gay on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
When Meredith tells her husband, Seth, what the title of the book is, he laughs. “Oh my gosh,” he says. “That’s such an impulse buy at the airport for me.”
Heather’s choir is going to perform at the event. Whitney’s husband, Justin, is surprised to learn the choir is going to sing “church hymns” and worries that he will “have some PTSD.” (He was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints years ago.)
“So cocktail attire, but potentially LDS hymns?” Justin asks.
Whitney replies, “Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense.” Whitney doesn’t really want to be in the choir at this point, but she says she’s doing it to support Heather — despite their big falling out.
The event is on the roof of the Hardware Apartments in Salt Lake City. “I really want tonight to be a night where we all get along and, like, where everyone feels welcome and no conflict erupts,” Heather says unrealistically. Realistically, she adds, “and if there is a fight, I would like it to occur right in front of my ‘Bad Mormon’ cover poster.”
(Bravo) Somehow, Heather Gay is going to end up with a black eye on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Ugh. The black eye mystery continues.
At the “Bad Mormon” cover party, Lisa comments on how much better the black eye Heather mysteriously got on the Housewives’ trip to San Diego looks. “It’s totally gone,” Lisa says.
Heather replies, “Just like the memory of it. I hope.”
Lisa tells Heather that memory is “never going away. I think it’s going to be the topic of many conversations.” Heather says she “wanted it to be, like, not the main issue, and now it’s become the only issue.”
It does not seem to occur to her that’s because she’s been so coy about it.
In a confessional, Lisa says, “If you want the attention diverted from your black eye and you don’t want people talking about it, just say what happened and then we’ll all move on. It’s like a big game for Heather.”
Angie K. wants to make trouble
Angie Katsanevas is planning to confront Jen at Heather’s event because, she believes, Jen is blaming her for Heather’s black eye: “She’s trying to put rumors out there … and ruin my good name because hers is in the toilet.”
Why would Jen do this? Angie K. says, “Once Jen … feels that … you have crossed her, she’ll forever be out to get you. This is the final straw for me. … She’s been the violent one. She’s been the aggressive one. We’ve all seen it.”
And then Angie K. offers another theory about the black eye — “everybody is saying” that Heather and Jen were doing “Barbie scissor kicks” (Angie K.’s weird euphemism for lesbian sex) “and then Jen beat the [expletive] out of her” because “maybe someone wasn’t very good in bed.”
Angie K. may have been joking when she went on about this at some length. But it wasn’t even vaguely funny.
(Randy Shropshire | Bravo) Jen Shah, Heather Gay and Sharrieff Shah in "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Jen and Sharrieff and Angie H. and Chris
At Heather’s event, the Shahs and the Harringtons come face-to-face for the first time since it was revealed that Chris was behind a fake Instagram page that trolled Lisa and Jen — driving Jen to attempt to take her own life, she said.
University of Utah assistant football coach Sharrieff Shah looks at Chris and sternly says, “In order for me to find a path of reconciliation and forgiveness, I need to hear from you.”
Chris starts to talk and then appears to choke up. He says, “Sorry,” but it’s unclear if he’s apologizing for what he did online or for choking up.
Angie H. says, “I think what he’s trying to say is as personal as it felt, it was not personal.”
This is ludicrous. Chris attacked Jen and Lisa online by name, and it wasn’t personal?
At least as edited, it’s unclear if Chris has actually apologized. But Sharrieff, nonetheless, accepts what he believes is Chris’ apology, shakes his hand and hugs him. Angie H. hugs Jen. It’s super awkward and weird.
Angie K. confronts Jen
Angie K. goes over to talk to Jen and takes Danna with her, an odd decision given that Jen and Danna have been at odds since they met. Jen is talking to Whitney and Lisa when Angie K. rather rudely interrupts. “OK, wrap it up,” Angie K. tells them.
And then Angie K. loudly asserts, “Jen, you are going around spreading rumors that I gave Heather a black eye.”
Jen says, “That is a lie. I never said that.” And they argue.
(Randy Shropshire | Bravo) Angie Katsanevas and Heather Gay on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Jen calls Sharrieff over, and Angie K. tells him that Jen “gets abusive and bully-like to people like me who have had her back.”
Angie K. calls Angie H. over and says that Jen is “telling me that [Angie H.] has pushed her to the brink of suicide.” And she questions how, if that was true, the Shahs and the Harringtons could make nice with each other. And she questions whether Jen’s suicide attempt was “even real.”
Jen shouts at Angie K. that, yes, it was real. And Sharrieff angrily (but calmly) asks Angie K. if she’s questioning whether Jen “almost died.” Angie K. then questions whether Jen’s anger toward Angie H. was real. “Absolutely real,” Heather says.
Angie K. has just questioned if someone’s suicide attempt was real, and she did it on camera. Jen is a “RHOSLC” villain, but Angie K. looks worse in this exchange.
“I have never met anybody in my life as evil and disgusting as Angie, because you don’t do that,” Jen says in a confessional. “You don’t question someone’s mental health or suicide attempt. That is beyond [expletived] up.”
She’s not wrong about that.
After Jen exits, Angie K. — clearly unaware of the gravity of what she’s just done — continues to complain about Jen and call her names. Heather asks Angie K. if she wants peace with Jen, and Angie K. says, “there’s no way to move forward with her.”
(Randy Shropshire | Bravo) Angie Katsanevas (second from left) and Lisa Barlow (second from right) sing on "The Real Housewives of Salt lake City."
Singing with the choir
Heather’s choir, the Faux Tab Choir, sings, and it’s … OK. In a confessional, Lisa says, “Am I on key? I have no idea. I know a lot of other people aren’t.”
Jen is much more enthusiastic about her performance. In a confessional, she belts out, “Shah-mazing grace, how sweet Jen is” — and it’s not good.
In a confessional of her own, Angie K. says, “I’m not the best singer, but knowing that I’m surrounded by other singers and my voice will be drowned out …” Earlier, we saw a brief clip of Angie K. singing at home. We’re lucky it was brief. She was not on-key.
The book cover
Heather is hoping that the “Bad Mormon” cover is provocative: “This cover is sacrilegious, blasphemous and terribly offensive,” she says — apparently because she’s holding a copy of the Book of Mormon? And, she says, the book will reveal “secrets you don’t reveal.” She does not specify.
Some of the other women didn’t understand that the only thing being revealed at the party was what the book will look like.
“It’s a great cover,” Lisa says. “I’m just wondering, like, what’s going to go inside?”
And Angie K. says, “Nothing like being invited to a book party with no books for sale.”
Flash forward
After what would have been, under normal “Real Housewives” circumstances, the end of Season 3, the narrative jumps forward three months to July 2022. As she gets ready to head to New York City for final preparations for her trial, Jen talks to her mother, Charlene.
“You’ll be innocent,” Charlene says. “We know that, right?”
This is days before Jen pleads guilty. Jen does not tell her mother the truth. The producers insert a flashback to the day Jen was arrested and include a montage of her repeatedly insisting she’s an innocent woman.
In New York
Jen and Sharrieff arrive in New York and check into the Lotte New York Palace hotel. (Rates range from about $300 a night for a standard room to $25,000 a night for a penthouse suite. They appear to be staying in a larger-than-standard room, perhaps a smaller suite of some sort.)
Heather and Meredith are also there to provide Jen with emotional support. “There really isn’t much else we can do,” Meredith says, other than just being there.
“I feel helpless,” Heather says.
She goes on to say that she talked with Jen just before she flew to New York, “and it was the most serious and ... heavy convo we’ve probably ever had.”
There’s a flashback to a day earlier, when Jen tearfully asks that, if she’s found guilty, Heather will “check on my family” and make sure Sharrieff and their two sons are OK.
Heather replies, “Of course. … We are going to be here for you and for your family.”
Back in New York, Heather asks about Sharrieff Jr. and Omar, and Sharrieff Sr. says he’s had “such painful conversations” with them.
There’s a flashback to two days earlier, as Sharrieff Sr. and Jen are sitting with 16-year-old Omar. “If the absolute unthinkable happened, and you were found guilty,” Sharrieff Sr. says, " … we have to be able to talk about that, too.”
Three days before the trial, Sharrieff expresses optimism and faith: “We want a certain outcome. But, regardless, God is with us. And know that we’ll be fine.”
Two days before the trial is set to begin, Heather, Meredith and Seth are talking about it. Seth expresses regret that he’s been unable to spend time with Sharrieff and offer his support. He asks how Sharrieff is doing. “He is having a tough time,” Meredith says. “It is a lot. He stressed out.”
And his stress level has increased because of the latest documents outlining the government’s case against Jen. “They got the witness list and saw all the former people in their lives that are going to be testifying,” Heather says. “And they also got little excerpts of what they’re going to say. And [Sharrieff] said it was ... really hard to read all these things about Jen.”
In response to Seth’s questions about the case against Jen, Meredith says, “Nobody is disputing that the scheme happened. The question stems from Jen’s involvement. Did she have knowledge of what was going on?”
Heather says, “There’s no proof.” She clearly believes that, but she’s wrong. There’s so much proof that Jen is about to change her plea to guilty.
“Have you ever asked Jen if she’s guilty of any of these charges?” Seth asks. Neither of them has.
Heather says, “When your friend looks you in the eyes and says, ‘I am innocent of this,’ you say, ‘Then I will support you in whatever path you’re going to take.’”
Will they remain friends with Jen if she’s found guilty? “If, in fact,” Meredith says, “Jen is proclaiming her innocence when she was really guilty, and not taking accountability ... that’s a really big problem for me.”
There’s footage of Jen coming out of the U.S. courthouse in New York City after changing her plea to guilty on July 11, 2022. She walks past reporters without answering their questions.
A graphic tells viewers that she has been sentenced to 6½ years in prison, halfway between the 10 years prosecutors asked for and the 3 years Jen’s lawyers were seeking.
(Seth Wenig | AP) Utah football coach Sharrieff Shah, Jennifer Shah's husband, left, leaves federal court in New York, Friday, Jan. 6, 2023. A judge has sentenced Jennifer Shah, a member of "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City", to 6 1/2 years in prison for helping to defraud thousands of people nationwide in a telemarketing scam.
Casting doubt on Sharrieff
Back in Salt Lake City, Heather meets Lisa for lunch at Pago. They’re both reeling from Jen’s guilty plea.
“I’m, like, wow, this is who she is. This is a bad, awful thing she’s done,” Lisa says.
Heather says she is “overwhelmed with grief. Grief that we are in this situation. That there’s victims. That our friend is going away for a decade. And she has a 16-year-old.”
“I didn’t want to believe that Jen was capable of doing any of that,” Lisa says, wondering why Jen decided “not to fight.”
Heather theorizes that Sharrieff “discovered what Jen was doing” in documents from prosecutors “and that it was impossible to explain away.” That there was “a smoking gun” in the documents “that said, ‘OK, the gig is up.’”
That’s not far off, but there wasn’t one smoking gun. The evidence against Jen was so overwhelming she had no choice but to plead guilty.
Quite surprisingly, Heather speculates that Sharrieff may have somehow been in on Jen’s crimes. “I’ll tell you right now. If my husband knew about it and my husband was involved,” Heather said, “and he said, ‘There you go, sis, I’ll take care of the boys. I’ll see you in 15 years’ — that, to me, is a whole other tragedy.”
That came out of the blue. Sharrieff has not been charged with any crime, and there is no hint in court documents that he is under suspicion.
Part 1 of a two-part, Season 3 reunion of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” airs Wednesday, Jan. 18, on Bravo — 6 p.m. on Dish and DirecTV; 9 p.m. on Comcast. Jen Shah did not take part in the reunion, which was recorded in December.
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