When Erika Jayne hops on our call, her friend and PR rep introduces her as E.J. When she’s behind the turntables, spinning dance tunes that take her back to her clubbing days, she’s DJ Pretty Mess. But to Bravo fans, she’s just Erika, the woman who’s brought drama — some of it focused on her 2020 split from husband Tom Girardi, currently serving a seven-year prison sentence — and razzle-dazzle to The Real Houswives of Beverly Hills for a decade.
Jayne, 54, joined the reality show in its sixth season; 10 years later, Season 15 is underway. It’s a run that has seen her go from mysterious newcomer to full-blown Housewives archetype with a rising-from-the-ashes narrative (her tagline: “Survival isn’t my story, it’s my superpower.”). But if she has changed the Housewives franchise in any tangible way, it might be through glamour. Before she arrived, the concept merely existed; afterward, it felt like a full-scale production — performance art with wigs and Swarovski.
Jayne doesn’t pretend otherwise. When asked what goes into getting camera-ready, she answers without hesitation. “All of it,” she says. “And the older I get, the more extensive it becomes.”
She’s not exaggerating. Here, Jayne shares what goes into maintaining her Housewives aesthetic as someone on the other side of menopause. She also opens up about her relationships (from messy friendship moments to a new romance) and why you might find her in a nightclub, but you’ll never catch her dwelling on the past.
The gospel of glam
It starts with skin. Years of constant makeup and stress, Jayne says, has left her with what she calls a “broken skin barrier.”
“I’ve worked very hard with my dermatologist to reclaim my skin barrier, to improve on my skin,” she says. “I have eczema. I have hormonal s*** going on. So I’ve worked with him to correct that. And I’ll be honest, when you are doing hair and makeup every day, these things suffer. My skin gets angry. It gets irritated.”
The solution: monthly facials, lasers, injectables — and full transparency about it.
“Yes, there are lasers, and yes, there’s Botox, and yes, there’s all of this stuff to basically just stay camera-ready,” she says.
Her hair has its own schedule.
The reality star opens up about her demanding beauty routine. (Sequoia Emmanuelle Photography)
“I color my hair every 12 to 14 days to keep it healthy,” she says, and praises colorist Nikki Lee at Nine Zero One Salon and stylist Ken San for keeping her hair “perfect and healthy.” Great stylists are key, but so is the less glamorous work. “Ultimately, it’s up to me to do the home maintenance,” she admits.
Then there’s the part viewers don’t always appreciate when they’re busy screenshotting confessional looks: hormones, mental health and the physical stamina it takes to film.
“You gotta work out,” Jayne says. “You know, I’m 54 years old. Can you believe I’m saying this? … I’m on hormone replacement therapy. I work very closely with my doctors to maintain that balance so that my hormones are as in check as possible so that I can perform at this level, so that I can reclaim my life, so that I can show up and be on television and have some sense of control.”
She’s also been open on the show about therapy, and she doesn’t downplay how much support she’s enlisted off-camera.
“You see me with my therapist, Dr. Jim Mann. I also have a psychiatrist. Like, I threw the entire f***ing sink at everything,” she exclaims. “Every problem I’ve had, every change I’ve gone through — whether it be physically, financially, emotionally, spiritually — I’ve done everything I possibly could to walk it like I talk it.”
That effort is happening against the backdrop of an industry that still expects women to freeze in time. I bring up Halle Berry’s recent comments about how women are pressured to stay 35 forever — and her frustration with California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoing legislation that would have expanded menopause-related care.
“We are expected to be productive members of society and earn money and pay bills,” Jayne says. “But hey — we need a little help around here.”
Her own “help” includes working with an anti-aging doctor to balance hormones as she’s gone through menopause. “I really think it’s wonderful,” she says. “I think that’s an individual journey for every woman … but I find it to be very beneficial.”If she could tell her 30-year-old self anything now, it wouldn’t be about skin care or serums.
“It ain’t going to end up the way you thought,” she says. “You’re here. Get prepared, honey. It’s about to be real tough in about 20 years.”
Coming from her, it doesn’t sound like a warning so much as a promise: It will be hard, and you will survive it.
“I’m in a performance business,” she says simply. “I show up on camera. I have to show up in the best mental space, the best emotional space, the best physical space. This job is hard.” That’s been especially true in recent years.
‘I enjoy a bit of insanity’: A decade on RHOBH
Any Bravo viewer knows that the intense scrutiny of Jayne’s personal life has been both exhausting and deeply public. Jayne filed for divorce from Girardi in 2020 after more than 20 years of marriage. Girardi, a once-prominent lawyer known for partnering with the real-life Erin Brockovich, was disbarred in 2022. He’s currently serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted of four counts of wire fraud. During last week’s episode of RHOBH, she admitted to still being “heartbroken” over the whole situation. Mostly, though, she’s ready to move on.
“I don’t want to romanticize the past,” Jayne says, “and I’m really choosing to live in the present and look forward to the future.”
“Forward,” is how she describes the era viewers are seeing this season. “There’s light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel, and I still have a ways to go, but I certainly feel good, and I’m hopeful.”
But she also knows what she’s signing up for when she says yes to another season. The new episodes, which air on Thursdays on Bravo, start “beautifully,” she teases, before friendships inevitably get stress-tested.
“Friendships rupture, and there are some hot moments between Kyle [Richards], Dorit [Kemsley] and myself,” she says. “And that’s OK, because these things happen. There’s also some new energy, which I think viewers may appreciate.”
What has meant the most to her are the quiet responses from fans, not the noise. She still remembers advice from former castmate Yolanda Hadid: “Listen, Erika, you can only be yourself, and don’t worry about being like anybody else, because the audience is going to connect with each woman in different ways.”
If being good at reality TV is a skill, Jayne has it. She’s sharp, dramatic and philosophical about the whole experiment.
“This is a unique opportunity. It comes with a lot of reward and a lot of risk, and sometimes there are days when it feels like it’s too much, and then there are times that are absolutely magical,” she says. “It is an experience of a lifetime. Very few people get to do this, and certainly very few get to do it for a decade, and what can I say? I enjoy a bit of insanity.”
Still, she doesn’t sit around revisiting her greatest hits or headlines. “I don’t watch old seasons because I’ve tried to stay in the present moment,” she says.
A new chapter
Outside of Beverly Hills, Jayne is embracing her turntables era as DJ Pretty Mess, reconnecting with the club culture that first shaped her in New York in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
“When I moved to New York City in 1989, all I did was go to clubs and I loved club music,” she says. “That’s what Erika Jayne is: a dance music artist. I love those records and I love playing other people’s records. I love a party. I love going to a club. And that’s what DJ Pretty Mess is all about.”
She wants to bring back the social, sweaty, messy charm of real nightlife.
“That social aspect of people talking to one another, people dancing, people listening to cool music,” she says. “What I’m really here for is a good time and good music. Really, that’s it. And I enjoy it. I love it.”
In February, she’ll head to Australia for a run of DJ dates. She’s also fresh off a great run on Broadway and lights up when she talks about being on stage.
“It is my most favorite thing in the world to do,” she says. “Whether it’s music, dance, DJing … whether it’s acting, all of it — the creative arts for me, performing arts is where I live and I love it.”
Offstage, she’s learning to be more protective of other people in her orbit. After years when, as she puts it, “so much of my life was dragged out” and scrutinized, the entertainer now keeps certain things to herself.
“I keep my personal relationships close to my vest and I do that for them,” she says. “They don’t deserve that. They deserve peace.”
Her grown son, now a police officer, is one of the people she tries to shield. So is the man she’s currently seeing.
“I’m dating, and it’s really nice,” she says. “I really like him and I think it’s wonderful.”
Between a new man, thrilling career opportunities and another reality TV run, it’s little wonder why Jayne is so keen to focus on what’s ahead.
“So much has happened in the last five years,” she says. “I continue to put my life back together and grow, and we get to see that [this year].”
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