The second part of the reunion event once again dove deep into Jayne's high-profile divorce and legal woes.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion special returned for part two on Wednesday, and Erika Jayne was in the hot seat yet again.
The second part of the four-part reunion began where last week's episode ended, as host Andy Cohen addressed Jayne's allegations that her estranged husband, Tom Girardi, had been unfaithful, and Cohen asked if she'd stayed faithful to him during their marriage.
"Up until I filed for divorce, Yeah," Jayne said, after a long and thoughtfully dramatic pause.
Cohen and the castmembers also rewatched scenes from the past six seasons of Jayne's time on the show, where she routinely spoke of her husband in a glowing light and maintained that their relationship was going well.
Cohen then asked Jayne to address comments from viewers who accused Jayne of being "a liar," and that she's presenting wildly different images of what her relationship with Girardi was like.
"All marriages are complex. People are complex," Jayne said. "There were good times, there were bad times. You’re talking about two decades of a marriage. So, no one’s marriage is perfect."
Jayne added, "I think that I highlighted the best of him."
Joined by her fellow RHOBH co-stars, Cohen pushed Jayne for answers on some tough questions, including why she stayed with him for as long as she did instead of leaving.
According to Jayne, "I was not in control of my finances. I walk out with two credit cards, they get cut. Am I gonna call you?"
"I know what you make on this show. It ain’t bad," Cohen responded, to which Jayne claimed, "I gave every paycheck to my husband."
The statement left her co-stars fairly stunned, as Kyle Richards said that "sounds crazy to me," and Garcelle Beauvais asked, "Since you’ve been making money?"
"Yes. I’ve handed every paycheck I’ve ever made, over," Jayne stated.
When asked if she felt as if she was held financially "captive" by Girardi, Jayne chose her words carefully and explained how their relationship began.
"I’ll say this -- I was 27 when I went in. He was 60. The power balance is way out of whack," she explained. "I trusted this man. All of my finances were kept down at the firm, and everything was kept there."
She also explained that one of the reasons she didn't leave sooner was she knew that, if they got divorced, she'd be entitled to half his money, but would also be on the hook for half his debts. However, she also claimed not to be aware of how serious his financial and legal troubles really were.
"There was no talking to this person. Trying to get him to answer my questions, getting shut out completely. Anger, personality changes," Jayne said. "And you can see now, the man is in a home, he’s in a memory care facility. We’ve all seen the pictures of him with a black eye. We’ve seen how disheveled and how absolutely horrible he has deteriorated since I left in November."
"So, what I have been saying is true. It’s not unusual in Tom’s business for him to be sued. But when Erika Girardi started ending up on lawsuits, that’s when my ears were pricked," she added.
Jayne also took viewers question, as presented by Cohen and shared additional insights into the status of her marriage and her legal woes.
Jayne stated that the core reason her divorce has not yet been finalized is that they are waiting on a "competency hearing" and that Girardi's conservatorship is the primary reason the finalization has been delayed.
She also claimed that she knew of at least three women that Girardi allegedly had affairs with during their 22-year marriage -- including one woman who she found out about the day she decided to leave him.
"I went through his phone and she had sent a picture of her t**s, and he has a flip-phone, you know? So I responded, ‘Nice t**s, stupid b**ch.’ But I couldn’t even figure out how to put a space so it was, like, a run-on sentence!" Jayne recalled with a laugh.
Cohen also asked the other castmates about Jayne's marriage, and directly questioned Richards on why she hadn't told Jayne when she'd heard rumors of Girardi's infidelity.
"You know, you hear rumblings," Richards explained, hesitantly. "There were little hints. People say, ‘Erika acted like everything was great…’ She would give little hints that things weren’t so great. I could feel that she wasn’t always happy, you know? She’d made a little joke here and there."
"I could always feel it, he wasn’t kind to her. He really wasn’t. And then I would hear these little stories, too, on the side, but we hear so many rumors about so many people," she continued. "I started piecing it together a little bit, but of course, I didn’t have anything clear, you know, until she actually came out and shared it."
Jayne also addressed Girardi's engaging public persona and how she claimed it wasn't a representation of who he actually was, or his mental state.
"He’s on a loop. Saying the same stories over and over. He’s a master persuader and a master performer. He could not have told you anyone’s name here. Not a soul. But he certainly could sit there and entertain," Jayne shared.
Ultimately, Jayne reiterated several times how lost she is, and how she remains unsure of how things came to be the way they are. As well as what is true or not true about the rumors and reports regarding Girardi's legal woes.
"I’m at a place where I don’t quite know who I was married to, because there are good parts and there are bad parts, and I’m trying to -- much like everyone else around me -- trying to figure out what the f**k happened," she shared. "In the law firm and in my personal life, things that I’m finding out, there are moments I am overwhelmed, I am sad, I am heartbroken, and then I am bewildered. Truly. Where I’m like, what was real? How about that?"
When it comes to the legal issues -- including multiple lawsuits and allegations of embezzlement and fraud leveled against both her husband and herself -- Jayne claimed she was kept entirely in the dark, and that she's far from the only woman this kind of thing has happened to.
"I am one of many. If I could show you my DMs of women who have reached out to me, who have been in similar situations. Married to businessmen, you know?" Jayne claimed. "Some lady found she owned multiple homes! So, it happens. And that’s, I think, also hard for people to understand. If you’ve never seen it, you go, ‘How could you not know?’"
"And that’s what the bankruptcy trustee is getting down to," she continued. "You know, they’ve got to sort out what money was supposed to go where. And at this point, quite honestly, I have to worry about myself."
"Whatever Tom Girardi did or did not do, that’s on him. But I know that a lot of his decision making is being pointed this way now," she added. "His life is over. He’s in his 80s. He’s in a memory care facility. His career is over and done. I just turned 50. I cannot allow all of this destroy me and take me to a place that I cannot recover. I have to survive this."
Part three of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion special airs next Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.
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