Looking back. Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Heather Gay reflects on her friendship with Jen Shah during an exclusive interview with Life & Style.

Heather, 40, shares the story of her first trip New York City with Jen at one point in her forthcoming book Bad Mormon — set to be released on Tuesday, February 7. The Beauty Lab founder tells Life & Style that she learned to be “more skeptical” while reflecting about their past memories together.

“I was pulled into this world and fell under her spell just like I think a lot of America did. Those were kind of the glory days of Salt Lake City Housewives,” the Bravo star shares. “She and I went to New York, you’re gonna get to see her host parties for her business and do all of these things that we eventually learned was all a lie and came at the cost of victims that will need to have restitution and that there was collateral damage.”

Jen was sentenced to 78 months (6.5 years) in prison in January after pleading guilty to being involved in a nationwide fraud scandal. Jen was initially arrested in March 2021. At first, she declared her innocence, however, changed her plea to guilty in July 2022.

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Randy Shropshire/Bravo

Heather, for her part, tells Life & Style that she learned an important lesson from the entire experience. “When something is too good to be true, I’ve learned that it most likely is,” she shares.

In Bad Mormon, the reality star shares her upbringing and recounts her days leading up to the RHOSLC. Overall, Heather says that being one of the Housewives has “granted” her so many professional opportunities and “changed” her life for the better.

“I mean, it has given me the opportunity to put my story in a book. It has given me the chance to meet famous people that I would never have even like interacted with at all,” she gushes. “I have Rihanna, DMing me. I met Chrissy Teigen at BravoCon. I have all these chances to just really meet women that I’ve admired that have struggled and built their own lives too. That access alone is amazing. The social media community of people that say ‘I feel seen, I feel heard, I relate to you,’ that fills my cup every day.”

As for the possibility of writing as second book following the success of Bad Mormon, Heather jokes that there might just be “more Housewives fodder” on the way.

“After everything that’s happened  in season 3, I could probably have a book in me just to write about that,” she quips. “A season 3 tell-all is on the horizon for sure.”