Host Andy Cohen didn't waste a minute of part two of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" reunion on Wednesday, grilling Erika Jayne on why she didn't leave Tom Girardi sooner if she knew he had been unfaithful after Jayne opened up about her estranged husband's string of infidelities.
"Where was I going?" Jayne said. "I was not in control of my finances. I walk out with two credit cards, they get cut — who am I gonna call?"
"I know what you make on this show," Cohen shot back. "It ain't bad."
Jayne then revealed that she gave "every paycheck I've ever made" to Girardi, eliciting gasps from her costars.
"I gave every paycheck to my husband. I stayed because I had no access," she told Cohen.
"Did you feel you were held captive?" he asked.
"I'll say this. I was 27 when I went in, he was 60, the power balance is way out of whack," she replied. "I trusted this man. All my finances were kept down at the firm."
Jayne previously told her costars that she had no idea Girardi had transferred $20 million in loans from his law firm to her company, EJ Global, because she was "kept away from the books."
The reality TV star also opened up about Girardi's alleged infidelity, telling Cohen that Girardi had been unfaithful for years.
Related stories
Jayne said she knew of three mistresses and had learned about one of them on the day she left Girardi after discovering pictures of a woman's breasts on his flip phone.
When Cohen read a question from a fan asking about the lacy red panties that were found in Girardi's office and put up for auction by his law firm to help settle its debts, Jayne said she had never seen them before and had no idea who they were bought for.
"Those were definitely not mine," she added.
Cohen then asked Jayne why she had painted a "very rosy picture" of her and Girardi's marriage.
"Marriages are complex, people are complex," Jayne said. "No one's marriage is perfect. I think that I highlighted the best of him."
Jayne hit back at one fan who asked why she would divorce her husband after he got sick. Girardi had a mental assessment in February as part of his brother's petition to become his permanent conservator, according to People. A psychiatrist diagnosed him with dementia and late-onset Alzheimer's disease in a sworn declaration submitted to the court.
"It's not fair to say that he got Alzheimer's and I split," Jayne said during the reunion. "Alzheimer's and dementia is a part of what was going on. I did everything I humanly possibly could to do right by him."
Jayne also addressed claims that her and Girardi's divorce was a "sham" to hide the couple's assets amid numerous lawsuits. Girardi has been accused of embezzling millions of dollars from the orphans and widows of plane-crash victims.
"Did you know there was liability when you left him?" Cohen asked. "Did you feel the ship was sinking and you were about to go down with it?"
"I felt he was sinking, not necessarily the ship," Jayne replied. "There was no talking to this person. You have to understand, it's like a wall of people around this man."
Jayne added that she hopes the accusations about Girardi aren't true "because that is not the man that I married."
"It does not look good," she told Cohen. "However, we still need to get to the bottom of it. Only one side of the story has been told."
