Book Review: Pretty Mess by Erika Jayne
Pretty Mess by Erika Jayne
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication Date: March 20, 2018
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Erika Jayne didn’t make it this far by holding back. Now, in her first-ever memoir, the fan favorite star of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills bares her heart, mind, and soul.
In Pretty Mess, Erika spills on every aspect of her life: from her rise to fame as a daring and fiery pop/dance performer and singer; to her decision to accept a role on reality television; to the ups and downs of family life (including her marriage to famed lawyer Tom Girardi, thirty-three years her senior). There’s much more to Erika Jayne than fans see on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Pretty Mess is her opportunity to dig deep and tell her many-layered, unique, and inspiring life story.
As fun and fearless as its author, this fascinating memoir proves once and for all why Erika Jayne is so beloved: she’s strong, confident, genuine, and here to tell all!
If you’re a fan of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, you know that this season is getting goooooood. Erika Jayne’s (aka Erika Girardi) husband, high-powered attorney Tom Girardi, has been accused of funneling over 20 million dollars of his clients’ settlements into Erika’s LLC, EJ Global. This is money that was supposed to go to the victims of a plane crash, including widows and orphans. Not good. The big question is…Did Erika know where the money in her LLC was coming from? The season started filming right before the story broke and more information comes to light every week. Bravo couldn’t have asked for more drama! If you’re not a fan of the show, you can watch the documentary The Housewife and the Hustler on Hulu if you want to get up to speed quickly.
Anyway, Pretty Mess came out in 2018 so there is no mention of any of that. However, I read it to see if there were any clues that Erika might have been in on Tom’s schemes. And the answer is, not really. However, Erika Jayne was never signed by a record label – she’s entirely self-funded and it doesn’t sound like she makes that much money performing. I would venture to say that she probably loses money because she is spending a boatload on costumes, and glam, travel and making music videos for her songs. Also, who knows how much she pays Mikey, her right-hand man and creative director. I’m sure he doesn’t come cheap.
Sadly, there is only one chapter about her experience on RHOBH and its light on details. She goes into a lot more detail about her time on Dancing with the Stars. I did enjoy reading about her pre-Housewives life though. I didn’t know much about her because she rarely talks about her past on the show. She opens up quite a bit about her relationship with her parents and grandmother. Fun fact: It was ghost-written by Brian Moylan, who wrote The Housewives: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewives that I reviewed a few weeks ago.
Pretty Mess was a quick, fun read that fans of RHOBH will enjoy. I checked it out from the library because I felt weird about giving her money while she’s in the midst of this legal scandal. If you’ve been following it, let me know what you think…Did Erika know??
