Emily Simpson explained why she’s so frustrated with Jennifer Pedranti and her finances after last week’s episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County.
After shading Jennifer, 47, in her cast confessionals and beyond, Emily, 48, shared why she believes Jennifer is “irresponsible” with her money and dished on her lack of empathy as Jennifer reacted to her mean comments, and Gina Kirschenheiter, 40, confirmed if she’d help her co-star again.
“I think that when Jen explains her situation, I think other people look at it from the perspective of, ‘Oh, poor Jen.’ But I never looked at it like that,” Emily admitted to Bravo HQ on August 29. “For me, probably being an attorney, I was like, ‘Wait. I don’t understand. Why are we saying poor Jen?’ I feel bad for the homeowner. You’re obligated to pay the $12,000 a month. That was an irresponsible decision on your part … You don’t have a job and you don’t have income.”
As RHOC fans will recall, Jennifer fell back on payments of her rental after Gina helped her get a home for her family.
According to Emily, Jennifer told her that she didn’t know if her ex-husband, William Pedranti, had a job or money and said he may have been having financial problems. In addition, Jennifer confessed that her car payment hadn’t been paid in six months.
“So I don’t understand what woman with five children moves into a home, signs a lease. It’s $12,000 a month. We’re not talking reasonable. This is an exorbitant amount of money. And then acts like she’s confused that she got evicted when you don’t pay,” Emily continued. “Also, when I was growing up, I grew up very poor. We didn’t have a lot of things. And my mother consistently was always like, ‘Well, we don’t have money cuz your dad. It’s your dad. Your dad left. It’s your dad’s fault. Your dad. Your dad. Your dad.’ And I remember as a young child being irritated and frustrated by her because I thought, ‘What about you?’ And so I felt like with the Jen, with the conversation where it was like, ‘Well, Will was supposed to pay,’ I’m like, ‘But you’re a 47-year-old woman with five kids and you’re perfectly capable of having income, of having a job, of making money, of supporting yourself, and you’re choosing not to do that and place the blame on him.’”
Because of what she witnessed in her childhood, Emily felt triggered by her castmate’s demeanor.
“It felt like that victim mentality I grew up with, and I think I have a lot of trauma from my childhood, and so that just brought up a lot of things about my own childhood,” she explained. “But at the end of the day, it’s not Jen’s problem to fix my trauma, and I understand that, and that’s why I apologized to her.”
“Ultimately, it’s her own life and her own decision, and I can’t consistently be mad at her because she doesn’t do things the way that I would,” Emily added.
Looking back on the things Emily said about her throughout RHOC season 18, Jennifer said she was hurt by the shade as Emily is someone she looks up to.
“Emily saying those things hurt. I look up to Emily. She’s super smart. She loves her husband. She’s such a good mom. She has really made a career for herself. Emily can take care of herself, and I looked up to that, and so to have a woman that you look up to and then flip and be like, ‘You’re less than me,’ or that’s how I felt by her, it hurt,” she revealed.
Also speaking to Bravo HQ last week, Gina praised Jen for her “great heart” and admitted that she would help her again — albeit with some precautions.
“If Jen asked me to help her today, I would. But I just would, I would follow all the rules,” she explained.
Gina then noted it was Jennifer’s pricy glam budget that set her off.
“The glam just sent me over the top. It did. It just sent me right over. That was it. That was the straw that broke it all,” she explained.
