In her first interview since being released from prison, disgraced The Real Housewives Of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah has taken “full responsibility” for her crimes.
Sitting down with People magazine, the reality star, 52, apologised for her actions as she admitted, “I was wrong.”
“I made wrong decisions. I should have done things differently,” she told the publication, adding she “should have been more diligent”.
“And I’m deeply remorseful and sorry for my actions and for my part. I take full responsibility,” the Housewife said.
Shock arrest rocks The Real Housewives
The mum-of-two was filming the second season of the hit reality show in 2021 when she arrested.
She was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering in relation to a telemarketing scheme targeting elderly and financially vulnerable people. The scam allegedly ran from around 2012 until her arrest in 2021.
While she initially pleaded not guilty to both charges, she changed her plea a week before her trial was due to begin in July 2022.
She agreed to pay $9.45 million in restitution and, in January 2023, was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison – later reduced on four occasions.
After serving just 34 months, Jen walked free on December 10, 2025.
Jen famously served her time at minimum-security women’s facility the Federal Prison Camp (FPC) in Bryan, Texas, alongside fellow infamous inmates Ghislaine Maxwell and Elizabeth Holmes.
She calls it a “long and a very complex journey” that led to her incarceration, citing “horrible business decisions” and putting her trust in “the wrong people” as what led to her downfall, rather than anything nefarious or calculated.
“Without re-litigating it, I became involved in the case because I made horrible business decisions and I disregarded huge red flags,” she told People. “I allowed the lines to be blurred between personal friendships and ethical business practices. And, in essence, I trusted the wrong people at a very vulnerable time in my life.
“I thought I was doing the right thing for the majority of the time. I was working under people who were running these companies.”
Secret split behind clouded judgement
Jen reveals that part of the reason her judgement was clouded when it came to her business was because she was going through a challenging time in her personal life during that period.
“What’s important for me to say – and I need to let people know – was, at the same time, my involvement in this conspiracy overlapped with my own personal pain,” she explained. “My husband [Sharrieff “Coach” Shah] and I were separated. We were on the verge of a divorce.
“I was overwhelmed with immense grief from the death of my grandmother, my father and my aunt, all in a very short period of time. I was spiralling deeper into my previously diagnosed clinical depression.
“And the reason I say all that is not as an excuse. Because it’s not like I was making good business decisions and then I woke up one morning and, all of a sudden, it’s like, ‘Oh, I made a bad business decision.’ This is the totality of everything that was going on and the overlapping of what I was dealing with personally.
“And I tried to avoid and numb all of that with alcohol and just avoid it. I trusted the wrong people at a very vulnerable time in my life.”
Life behind bars no holiday camp!
Walking into prison that first day, Jen tells People it “took my breath away” – and not in a good way!
“You hear people say it’s ‘Camp Cupcake’ – it’s not. It’s prison,” she insisted. “I just thought, ‘This cannot be where I’m going to be every day.’”
With her time served, she hopes that people will allow her to get back to living her life now.
“I understand that people have their opinions based on what they saw. But I would hope they would give me the grace to at least hear me and understand that I’m more than just the headline,” she said.
She hasn’t forgotten the $9.45 million in restitution she owes – and she’s now focused on paying it back as quickly as possible.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m accepting responsibility, and I’ve made it my mission to make sure that people are paid back.”
