Erika Jayne “never saw” estranged husband Tom Girardi’s guilty verdict coming.
The reality TV star’s reaction to the disgraced lawyer’s legal woes was caught on camera during the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” Season 14 finale Tuesday.
Cameras picked back up in August 2024 to film a conversation between Jayne and co-star Kyle Richards after a federal jury found Girardi, 85, guilty of four counts of wire fraud.
“I could have never saw this coming. Tom was loved, he was admired, he was accomplished,” she said in a confessional. “And this is how his story ended. I don’t know that I’ll ever get over that.”
Jayne, 53, candidly told Richards, 56, that she was doing “terrible” after learning about her ex’s fate.
“Right before this verdict, I was doing so good, I was feeling good, I was excited. And then the next day, I became tired. I started to want to sleep a lot,” she explained, comparing her emotions to being “depressed.”
“I just didn’t want to slide back into that terrible place,” she added.
Jayne said it felt like “the walls started to close in” after she “found out about the verdict.”
“It immediately took me back a couple of years when everything was just out of control,” she said in a confessional. “My drinking, my medication, it was just all of this pressure. And I thought, ‘Oh, my God. It’s happening again. It’s happening again.’ I literally felt like I was being dragged down, like I was being dragged under the ground.”
The “XXPEN$IVE” singer filed for divorce from Girardi in 2020 after 22 years of marriage. Shortly after their split, the lawyer was accused of stealing millions of dollars from former clients, including settlement funds.
Girardi denied the allegations and claimed his former chief financial officer, Chris Kamon, used him as a pawn in the decades-long scheme.
However, Girardi was ultimately found guilty of embezzling more than $15 million through his now-defunct law firm, Girardi & Keese.
While some people — including Girardi — speculated that Jayne was aware of his crimes, she has vehemently denied knowing anything about her husband’s wrongdoings. She has never been indicted.
Girardi faced up to 80 years in prison — 20 years for each count — for his crimes, but Jayne joked that he “ain’t got 80 days in him.”
The disgraced lawyer’s health has been on a steep decline ever since he was diagnosed with dementia and late-onset Alzheimer’s in 2021. Despite his worsening condition, he was declared competent to stand trial.
When asked if the verdict provided her “any closure,” Jayne admitted that “it’s very difficult” to separate the man she loved from the man who committed such appalling crimes.
“You think, ‘Well, I know this person differently.’ It f—ks me up inside. This was not what I expected to happen,” she shared, noting that it’s “not over” for her just yet.
“I still have s—t in front of me. And he put me through a lot. This experience with this man, while it was great, this ending is not OK. Not OK for many reasons,” she continued.
“And my feelings of sadness, my feelings of being overwhelmed, my feelings of loss and all of it, they’re all very real. And I also don’t have to apologize for my feelings. Because no one lived in that house but the two of us.”
Jayne noted that “it’s not as easy as everyone thinks” to just move on from the situation.
“I loved Tom very much. There’s part of me that still loves Tom very much,” she said. “I have incredible memories, I have terrible memories, and I wish things were not this way.”
However, during the “RHOBH After Show” Jayne said it “hurts less and less every day” now, adding, “It’s time to move on.”
