Erika Jayne Broke Her Silence On ‘Feeling Sorry’ for Herself After Tom Girardi’s Prison Sentence
Early this month, a judge sentenced Erika Jayne’s estranged husband, Tom Girardi, to more than 7 years in prison for embezzling millions of dollars of his clients’ settlement money. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, who filed for divorce in 2020, remained quiet on the sentence until recently. She spoke about how news of Girardi’s sentence made her feel sorry for herself during a recent performance in London.
Erika Jayne’s estranged husband, Tom Girardi, received a 7-year prison sentence
Girardi was a trial lawyer who rose to fame after winning a record settlement for environmental activist Erin Brockovich. In a stunning fall from grace, prosecutors say Girardi stole millions from his clients’ settlement funds from 2010 to 2020. He told clients they had to meet certain “bogus” requirements in order to receive settlements, while diverting millions of dollars into his personal accounts.
“This self-proclaimed ‘champion of justice’ was nothing more than a thief and a liar who conned his vulnerable clients out of the millions of dollars,” Bill Essayli, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, told The New York Times.
On June 3, a judge sentenced him to 87 months in prison and ordered him to pay over $2.3 million in fines and restitution.
Erika Jayne broke her silence on Tom Girardi’s prison sentence
On June 13, Jayne broke her silence on her estranged husband’s sentence. In an episode of the podcast Diamonds in the Rough, Jayne told Teddi Mellencamp about how she felt when she heard the news. She was performing a concert in London at the time.
“And then 10 minutes before the second show, I get the news that Tom is being sent to prison. … It just hurts,” she said, per Us Weekly. “It reopens old healing wounds, and it is something that, you know, I had a sold-out crowd in a theater just for me, and I was so grateful. My happiest place in the whole world to be is on stage. So while I was happy … there’s a little piece [of me] that was like, ‘Ugh.’”
She said the news of Girardi’s sentence impacted her performance.
“I was very disappointed because those people [in the audience] were there for me, and I felt like five percent of myself was feeling sorry for myself,” she said. “I was 95 percent there, and five percent of myself was feeling sorry for myself. This was the day that he got sentenced, my second show. My first show was flawless. And my second show was great, don’t get me wrong. But there was that five percent I could have given the audience, and instead I was feeling sorry for myself.”
Though she said the crowd loved her, she put effort into “fighting back thoughts and emotions” while onstage.
Her lawyer said she felt devastated
Before Jayne spoke publicly about Girardi’s sentence, her lawyer claimed she felt devastated by the news.
“Erika spent many years with Tom, she is experiencing a wave of emotions,” attorney Jim Wilkes told the U.S. Sun. “I’m sure she’s emotionally destroyed, but there’s a part of her that’s shut off and compartmentalized. If someone you loved and trusted, and everyone else told you to trust, broke every bit of trust you had in them and didn’t even tell you, covered it up, how would you feel?”
