A Housewives episode for the history books.
Jen Shah's arrest finally played out on tonight's Nov. 14 episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and it was shocking to say the least. The episode had fans on the edges of their seats from start to finish as her co-stars found out in real time about allegations of fraud and money laundering against Shah and her assistant (Jen pleaded not guilty to the charges in April 2021).
The ep picked up right after Jen fled filming last week after getting a call right as she, Heather Gay, Whitney Rose, Lisa Barlow and Jennie Nguyen were about to leave on a bus to the group vacation to Vail.
Whitney and Lisa call their husbands to tell them what happened and Heather suggests she might have gotten a "tip off" about the raid. Heather then calls and texts Jen but gets no answer.
After they depart for their getaway, Lisa calls not one, not two but six (!) of her lawyers "on payroll" to get guidance on what could be going on, leading Whitney and Heather to wonder if Lisa knows more about Jen's life than she's admitted. "She's acting very odd," Whitney says of Lisa.
The group then starts questioning the intricacies of Jen's businesses and her income. "I have had a lot of questions around Jen's lifestyle," Whitney admits. "It intrigues me where she gets all of her money and all of her things from...How does she get her money?"
The moment Whitney first sees the article on her phone and announces the news about Jen's arrest for alleged fraud and money laundering is truly chill-inducing. Lisa and Heather start crying and freaking out worse than they already had been. Whitney and Jennie are much more level-headed about the news.
"Her life didn't make sense to me and how much money she had," Whitney cracks. "But I did not think it would be something like this, I thought she had a sugar daddy or something."
Cut to doorbell security camera footage of NYPD officers, Homeland Security and numerous SWAT team members raiding Jen's home with rifles drawn. The footage shows one of Jen's sons being escorted out of the chalet with his hands in the air.
Lisa FaceTimes Meredith Marks, who is setting up the vacation rental, to break the news about Jen's arrest. "Honestly I'm not surprised by this," Meredith admits, shocking all four women. "Too many things didn't add up and I suspected that something was going on for a while. And now it's like validated that I was right, I'm not crazy."
While there's no actual footage of Jen being handcuffed, we do see her exiting jail later that day as news crews swarm her.
When everyone finally arrives to the rental that night (Mary Cosby arrived solo), they settle in before recapping the day's unbelievable events over dinner. Whitney tells the group she heard the Feds were tracking Jen's phone and arrested her "on the side of the road" after she left BeautyLab.
"She was running," Whitney claims as Mary adds, "She definitely fled the scene."
Meredith and Mary agree "this has been going on for many years" if the Feds are involved.
Then, Meredith drops a bombshell on the group: she claims a member of Jen's team once took an expensive handbag from her store. She even has security footage of the man taking the clutch, which he later returned at Meredith's request. Meredith also claims Jen has been "red flagged" at Louis Vuitton "because she pays cash."
When Heather brings up another unusual story in which she ordered an Uber for Jen, only to have Jen unexpectedly leave the ride minutes later at a random intersection, Lisa says that same exact night, "I just wanted to check with somebody and see if they met up with her."
"You think she was meeting up with another guy?" Jennie asks.
To find out what happens next, tune in to The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City next Sunday at 9 p.m.
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