'The Real Housewives of Orange County' star Shannon Beador wants fans to know she's not a victim and she's standing up for herself.
Shannon Beador felt a little like Wonder Woman filming season 18 of The Real Housewives of Orange County.
"There was so much going on there," she tells ET, putting her arms up to deflect imaginary bullets. "Zing! Zing! Zing! With all the things that were coming at me..."
Shannon knew it would be a tough season to navigate, at least initially. Five months before cameras went up, Shannon was arrested for driving under the influence (DUI) after crashing her car into a residential building. She broke her nose and arm upon impact. The extent of her injuries came as a shock to viewers during RHOC's premiere, on which she shared a photo of her face completely bloodied in the aftermath of the accident.
"I've heard that certain cast members are thinking that I was looking for sympathy with that," she laments. "I really went back and forth about showing that photograph, because now if someone Googles my name, you know, is that picture gonna show up now, for the rest of my life?"
Shannon hopes by sharing the nitty gritty of what she went through (though, she doesn't remember exact details of the night, other than a fight with her now-ex, John Janssen, led her to get behind the wheel and angrily drive away from his house, before crashing and briefly going unconscious -- she woke up after being transported to the hospital), others will learn from her mistakes.
"I literally kinda went into hiding, almost," she recalls of the weeks following her arrest. "I still am so humiliated about what happened, and I've still kept my circle very small around me. ... It's just embarrassing."
Shannon pleaded no contest, and is now serving three years probation. She's also enrolled in an alcohol program (she previously completed a separate, 28-day treatment) and doing community service as part of her punishment. Shannon considered opting out of season 18 to focus on rebuilding, but ultimately re-upped for another year.
"I wished that I could [take a year off], but I didn't," Shannon says. "You learn when you're on the show for this long, when you don't go to a dinner you are going to be talked about at that dinner, so I needed to be there, too, to clarify, because as you are seeing this season, other people have a completely different narrative about me and it's incorrect."
"For me, a way to move past the guilt and the shame of what happened is to for me is to confront it head on," she explains of laying it all out there this season. "I am so grateful that no one got hurt, because that is something that I don't think that I could have moved past. So, again, I was so grateful, but I am learning from that experience and I am trying. I still have a lot of shame, but I am trying to create a positive out of it, in any way I can."
"I don't need to defend myself," she reflects. "I used to tend to do that, and I feel that now I know who I am, and those close to me know who I am, as well. If the viewers, or the fans, believe the lies that other cast members are saying about me, then I am sorry that they do, but there is nothing I can do about it."
The biggest lie Shannon says is being told about her is that she's an alcoholic. Shannon owns up to previously having an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, using it to "numb" herself from the stresses of major life changes; just before the DUI, she became an empty nester as her youngest daughters, twins Stella and Adeline, went off to college; she was also stuck in the loop of an on-again, off-again relationship with her ex. Now, Shannon says, she's figured out new ways to cope, but still imbibes from time to time.
"Today, I go on long walks, I exercise, I put cold packs on, I do breathing," she rattles off. "There's a bunch of different things that I do, but I have learned so many things by going to the program that I went to. I am looking at myself and how I have dealt with things, from my childhood on, by stuffing them inside, not addressing them, so there is just a laundry list of good things that are coming out of what happened."
Shannon says the biggest change she's made is simply a realization: she's OK on her own.
"I am a relationship girl," she confesses. "You could set me up with anybody, and I will be their girlfriend and that is how my life has been so far, and I always feel like I am not worthy if I don't have a partner with me."
"It was very difficult at the beginning, when I finally moved and I was living by myself with [my dog] Archie, and not having my kids there," she continues. "You know, just sitting there with me. It was really hard a the beginning, but I continue to work with my therapist and a psychiatrist from the facility that I went to, so that I am blessed to have them."
Finding strength in herself gave her the strength to face her critics, aka her castmates.
"I knew that Tamra Judge was already gunning for me before the season started," she notes. "I have no fear of going against certain cast members, but it's never fun to be up against Tamra."
Shannon says, every time she filmed with Tamra this season, Tamra called her an "alcoholic."
"It's a character damning thing to say to a person, and it's crossing the line," Shannon hits back. "She has no knowledge, especially what I have been doing in the last year. She doesn't know. So, it's not OK with me, and I am not alright with it."
Shannon clarifies that she did stay sober for a period of time, especially when she was in outpatient treatment, but she and her doctors determined she didn't have a dependence on alcohol.
"What I wanted to get to the core of was, why do I make toxic choices?" Shannon says. "Choosing alcohol to cope falls in that category, but there was other choices that I was making, too. So this program did have an alcohol component. I had a sober coach throughout the whole thing."
Shannon says Tamra misrepresents their friendship at the time of her arrest; the pair famously fell out after Bravo fired Tamra from RHOC ahead of season 15. They didn't reconnect until Tamra returned to the show for season 17, and at that time, Shannon says, she kept Tamra at an arm's length. They never got back to the sisterhood they once shared.
"I wasn't willing to bring things back to the way they were," she explains. "I am not going to let Tamra Judge tell me what I need to do. Today, I can go out and have a few drinks. I keep saying two, sometimes I have had three, but I am keeping an eye on it. So, let the viewers watch all of the cast members this year and see their relationship with alcohol, OK?"
"Every single person [on the show] has had a really serious issue with Tamra, that's just what she does," Shannon says. "If Tamra wasn't talking about me this season, what would she be talking about?"
Yes, Tamra's been a vocal critic of Shannon's since the arrest, repeatedly proclaiming that her co-star needed to go to rehab. She told ET she's "the best friend" Shannon ever had, but Shannon dropped her because she was afraid of hearing the truth from Tamra.
"Wow," Shannon reacts, hearing the comment for the first time. "First of all, she said to me that she didn't know what a good friend was until she had met me and I'm sorry, Tamra, I have other friends that have been true friends for me with me since college."
Shannon and Tamra's 2.0 friendship crumbled in part thanks to a business partnership. They, along with OG Housewife Vicki Gunvalson, devised a "Tres Amigas" stage show, which premiered just before Shannon's arrest. They had committed to more dates after her DUI, a concern for Tamra, seeing as the show itself largely revolved around alcohol. Tamra's also said she learned Shannon was speaking ill of her, behind her back (which Shannon's denied).
"[The next show] was over a month, a little over a month from the DUI, and it's actually quite funny, because I had been to BravoCon and I got through it OK," Shannon establishes a timeline. "I'm not gonna hide under a rock. I want to confront the issue so my life doesn't need to end by doing this. I know that [Luann de Lesseps] did a show a month after her [arrest], so I'm OK doing that. We did two nights in Phoenix, and we took anything alcohol related out of the show. Do you know what happened the second night? Tamra goes, 'We're putting the alcohol song back in,' and I said, 'I don't feel comfortable about that. I just got a DUI.' 'No, it's fine. We're putting it in.'"
Tamra's claimed Shannon attempted to sneak a cocktail backstage at the shows, but Shannon says she wasn't hiding her alcohol consumption at all. In fact, she says she made a point to draw attention to the fact that she made herself a drink.
"What did I learn at a facility that helped me create healthy boundaries for myself? I had a toxic relationship with Tamra," Shannon says. "Every year, she had a problem with me, had a problem with something I did or didn't do, and every time, in deference to the friendship, I just kinda brushed off certain things. I'm not going back this time. I'm not, but I mean, watch the show. She says she's done with me. I'm fine with that."
Shannon and Vicki are still close (and have continued the stage show as a duo), despite Tamra's claim that Vicki privately shares her same concerns about Shannon. Vicki, like Tamra, claimed Shannon "ghosted" her when she was also let go from RHOC after season 15. Most recently, Taylor Armstrong, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star who joined RHOC as a "friend of" for season 17, shared a similar story on her The Naked Truth podcast, saying she felt abandoned by Shannon when she, too, was not asked back to the series.
"I have apologized to Taylor, because, like I said, after my DUI, I really cut most people out of my life," Shannon offers. "It's interesting that Tamra put that bug in Taylor's ear, because we did have lunch plans, and she had guests so she backed out, but I did have her come to my house at Christmas ... but the phone works both ways."
"I really haven't been reaching out to people," she continues. "I don't really go out, either. I don't go to big restaurants, or, 'Let's go to the bar!' I have a few neighborhood spots that I go to, so I apologized, and I apologized to Taylor recently, but it's a good subject matter. I take responsibility. Yes, I was not dialing Taylor off the hook, but I cared about her.... and I apologize for any part of that, you know, for Tamra, too. I apologize to her. If you think that I was ghosting you back then, we were filming again and we all know what happens when you are filming. You're flipping busy."
This season, Shannon finds herself closest to two women she's historically been at odds with on the show: Emily Simpson and Gina Kirschenheiter. Gina lived through her own DUI ordeal a few years ago, which became a point of contention for her and Shannon, as Shannon would bring it up often, as a dig. Now, Shannon says, she's eating her words. The two shared an emotional moment early this season, with Shannon offering Gina a heartfelt apology for adding pain to her plate.
"I was overwhelmed with all of a sudden -- you'll see it a few times this season -- all of a sudden, I just get consumed with emotion," Shannon says. "It just floods me, and that happened that day. ... I apologized to her for not being as understanding, because I was the person saying, 'There's no excuse to ever get a DUI!'"
"It's unbelievable," Shannon adds of Gina now being her champion on the cast. "I'm grateful for her being so accepting of my apology, and being able to forgive me and try to move forward."
The Real Housewives of Orange County airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo. Episodes stream next day on Peacock.
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