Did Jen Shah Get The Final Word?

 

After a week of back and forth negotiations with Bravo, the verdict is in on whether Jen Shah would appear on the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City season three reunion.  Literally within hours before Friday's taping of the reunion, news broke that Shah would not be attending.

 

As we all know by now, following a shocking turn of events, Jen changed her plea to guilty in July 2022, leaving the Bravo universe speechless.  Shortly thereafter, Andy Cohen talked about it briefly on his radio show, admitting that he felt deceived, and Jen's involvement with Bravo quickly came to a halt.  The RHOSLC star was not at BravoCon 2022 and has not appeared on any recent Watch What Happens Live episodes ever since.  In the months that followed, the executive producer would become  annoyed whenever he was asked about Jen Shah, but always stopped short of confirming that she was fired, only adding that no decisions pertaining to Shah's future on the show would be made until after her sentencing.

 

Meanwhile, as season three crawled along, it quickly became apparent that production had indeed blind sided by Shah's guilty plea because not a word of Shah's guilty plea has been mentioned, leaving many fans feeling like the entire season is a sham.  Personally, I believe this is what irked Cohen more than anything else.

 

Flash ahead to the present.  Despite Shah's shaky future with the show, she has been predominenty featured on the show this season, so how could she not attend the renunion?  Also, the star herself just assumed she would be attending the reunion, and was actually looking forward to sharing (what she could) about her seemingly "sudden" change to a guilty plea.  But according to Shah, just a few days before the taping, Bravo executives made her aware she was not invited.

 

Shah revealed she was disappointed with the network's decision, because the reunion would be the only venue to confront "inaccuracies" as well as the opportunity to address her story line with cast members.  So Bravo relented, and extended Shah an invitation to attend (Sidenote:  Housewives are given $izable checks for reunion tapings).  However,  as the reunion taping approached, Jen and her legal team informed Bravo that "out of respect for the courts" (LoL) and a standing judicial order, she would not be able to discuss anything related to her legal case or sentencing.

 

The network found this to be "unsatisfactory", and promptly rescinded their invitation.  Shah then posted a statement on SM which read, "Bravo's expectation has no regard for me or my family's well-being and under legal advice, I will not be attending the reunion".

 

So there you have it; the perfect ending to a nonsensical season. The question now is how in the hell did they conduct a reunion without the show's main story line in attendance?  Not since RHOBH season 9 has there been so much controversy surrounding a reunion, and we all saw how that turned out for Lisa Vanderpump.  Suffice to say, Jen Shah is no Lisa Vanderpump. 

 

So what's next?  Cohen will obviously preface the reunion with a statement on why there's an empty space on the couch, and both Angies and Danica will most likely appear, but how do you discuss a season, when the main subject of the season is not present?  I think the answer is simple; you can't.