Heather Gay appeared on Tuesday night’s episode of Watch What Happens Live, where she explained her friendly status with hairstylist Tenesha Luckett.
While looking back at the drama of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City season four, Heather, 49, shared why she was more upset about Monica Garcia‘s troll account than Jen Shah‘s fraud scheme, accused Monica, 40, of being “obsessed” with the cast, and looked ahead to the upcoming fifth season of the show, which will reportedly see “new women” replacing Monica.
“We thought it was honorable for [Tenesha] to come forward, incriminate herself, and mea culpa the whole thing and tell us. Otherwise, we would’ve been stuck in the dark, knowing things didn’t add up but not knowing why,” Heather explained on the January 23 episode of WWHL.
Because Heather is only a “side gig” for Tenesha, and her involvement with Monica and Reality Von Tease has caused so much backlash, Tenesha “doesn’t want to” work with Heather anymore.
“The mess of it is too much,” Heather noted. “She has a career. She’s a single mom. She came clean. She doesn’t want to be dragged through this. She wants to move on and I support her in that.”
When Andy Cohen, 55, then mentioned that Heather and her castmates seemed to be way more upset with Monica than they were with Jen amid her crimes against the elderly, Heather said they were simply offering support to someone they thought they knew.
“Essentially, Jen denied ever having any guilt until she pled guilty. And she denied it the morning she pled guilty … We were supporting her in what she was professing to be saying,” Heather shared. “None of us wanted her to defraud the elderly and Jen at least was herself when she was doing that. Monica came on as a completely different person. We don’t know who she really is. How can we really support her?”
During the airing of season four, it was revealed that Monica had been doing drive-bys at Jen’s house. And as Heather revealed, Jen wasn’t the only cast member Monica wanted to know about.
“She wanted all of our addresses. I have the receipts,” Heather stated. “She wanted to know where we live. She wanted to know what we were driving. She was obsessed with being adjacent to the show.”
Although a lot of drama came from Monica’s addition to the RHOSLC cast, Heather said her presence also united the rest of the women.
“Nothing bonds you more than a common enemy, and I can thank Monica for bringing us all much closer. I think we were really upset and we were waiting to see what she had to say to excuse herself and she didn’t say anything,” Heather explained.
After then naming Whitney Rose, 37, as the cast member who would be first to forgive Monica and taking aim at Monica’s Burn Book, saying it’s “been done” and was “not her idea,” Heather reacted to the leaked video of Monica and mom.
“I mean, give them both snowflakes. They had a plan,” she alleged.
After finally admitting that Jen gave her a black eye, Heather reacted to Jen’s (or whoever is posting on social media on her behalf) response to the matter, which threatened a lawsuit and accused Heather of “slander and defamation.”
“It was a typical response and I think she absolutely watched it and I hope she’s glad that we at least uprooted Monica, who had really been after her the whole time,” Heather noted.
Following the conclusion of the reunion, Heather admitted Monica’s performance left a lot to be imagined.
“She promised us a lot more to the story and she promised us that there was a lot more to be heard and it fell completely flat. She had nothing to say. She couldn’t even say sorry,” Heather pointed out.
While Heather has made it clear that Monica’s troll account against the RHOSLC cast is unforgivable, a caller wanted to know why she wasn’t as upset with Angie Harrington‘s husband Chris when he hosted an account against Jen.
“I was never supportive of that but it was one comment. He came clean. He apologized,” she stated. “And he wasn’t a Housewife. And Monica came on with an agenda. She led with all of this truth-telling except for the hugest thing. All she had to say was, ‘I’ve been trolling you guys for years. I know your kids’ names. I know where you live. I know where you work.’ She acted like she was meeting us for the first time and wanted to be our friend. All of that was a lie, and that is unforgivable.”
According to Heather, Monica’s troll account would have been a “non-issue” had she been forthright.
“If she came clean, and this is the person we’re filming with, we would have worked through it,” she insisted. “It was the deception for the entire season, especially from someone who says she’s a truth-teller.”
When another caller asked why Angie Katsanevas, 50, was not included in her beach chat with the cast about Monica, Heather explained that she didn’t know the “level of trauma” Angie sustained.
“I had witnessed what it had done to Whitney, [Lisa Barlow], and [Meredith Marks], and that’s why I brought them out for it.”
She then offered an update on where she stands with Whitney.
“[We’re] in a great place. I love my cousin,” she stated.
Later, on the WWHL: After Show, Heather admitted she “absolutely” worries about people mistrusting her due to her hesitancy to come forward with her story about her black eye.
“When you evade accountability like that, karma’s a b*tch,” she noted.
While Heather confirmed she has not spoken to Sharrieff Shah, 52, she felt that Jen’s camp would issue some sort of “blanket denial” or “character assassination” response to her black eye reveal on the finale of the reunion.
When Heather was then asked if coming clean about Jen’s involvement with her black eye sooner would have impacted Jen’s criminal sentencing, she insisted she “didn’t know” what happened while also sharing that she felt responsible for their encounter.
“I wasn’t willing to roll the dice, especially because I felt culpable and I felt like it was my fault it all happened, honestly,” she explained.
Looking back at the RHOSLC season four finale, Heather reflected on her exposing of Monica.
“A few days prior to filming, I started to put the Beauty Lab pieces together, which was the first chink in the armor. But I was absolutely championing her,” she revealed. “I wanted to be her friend. We had so much in common. She’s very charming and I liked her.”
Although no casting decisions have been announced for season five quite yet, aside from Monica’s departure, Heather seemed to confirm the addition of new cast members.
“We’ve gotta see the new women. Absolutely,” she teased. “I think that [RHOSLC] has so many layers, but at the core of it is a lot of friendship and a lot of competition, which I think is what makes great television. So I’m looking forward to season five.”
No word yet on when the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City cast will begin filming season five.