When Erika Jayne hops on our name, her good friend and PR rep introduces her as E.J. When she’s behind the turntables, spinning dance tunes that take her again to her clubbing days, she’s DJ Fairly Mess. However to Bravo followers, she’s simply Erika, the lady who’s introduced drama — a lot of it targeted on her 2020 break up from husband Tom Girardi, at present serving a seven-year jail sentence — and razzle-dazzle to The Actual Houswives of Beverly Hills for a decade.
Jayne, 54, joined the truth present 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 when she has modified the Housewives franchise in any tangible manner, it could be by glamour. Earlier than she arrived, the idea merely existed; afterward, it felt like a full-scale manufacturing — efficiency artwork with wigs and Swarovski.
Jayne doesn’t faux in any other case. When requested what goes into getting camera-ready, she solutions with out hesitation. “All of it,” she says. “And the older I get, the extra in depth it turns into.”
She’s not exaggerating. Right here, Jayne shares what goes into sustaining her Housewives aesthetic as somebody on the opposite aspect of menopause. She additionally opens up about her relationships (from messy friendship moments to a brand new romance) and why you may discover her in a nightclub, however you’ll by no means catch her dwelling on the previous.
The gospel of glam
It begins with pores and skin. Years of fixed make-up and stress, Jayne says, has left her with what she calls a “damaged pores and skin barrier.”
“I’ve labored very onerous with my dermatologist to reclaim my pores and skin barrier, to enhance on my pores and skin,” she says. “I’ve eczema. I’ve hormonal shit happening. So I’ve labored with him to appropriate that. And I’ll be sincere, if you find yourself doing hair and make-up every single day, this stuff endure. My pores and skin will get indignant. It will get irritated.”
The answer: month-to-month facials, lasers, injectables — and full transparency about it.
“Sure, there are lasers, and sure, there’s Botox, and sure, there’s all of these items to principally simply keep camera-ready,” she says.
Her hair has its personal schedule.
The fact star opens up about her new chapter — and intense magnificence routine. (Sequoia Emmanuelle Images)
“I coloration my hair each 12 to 14 days to maintain it wholesome,” she says, shouting out colorist Nikki Lee at 9 Zero One Salon and stylist Ken San, “who retains my hair excellent and wholesome.” Nice stylists are key, however so is the much less glamorous work from home. “In the end, it’s as much as me to do the house upkeep,” she factors out.
Then there’s the half viewers don’t at all times clock after they’re busy screenshotting confessional seems to be: hormones, psychological well being and the bodily stamina it takes to movie.
“You gotta work out,” Jayne says. “You understand, I’m 54 years outdated. Are you able to imagine I’m saying this? … I’m on hormone substitute remedy. I work very carefully with my medical doctors to take care of that steadiness in order that my hormones are as in examine as attainable in order that I can carry out at this stage, in order that I can reclaim my life, in order that I can present up and be on tv and have some sense of management.”
She’s additionally been open on the present about remedy, and she or he doesn’t downplay how a lot assist she’s enlisted off-camera.
“You see me with my therapist, Dr. Jim Mann. I even have a psychiatrist. Like, I threw your entire fucking sink at the whole lot,” she exclaims. “Each drawback I’ve had, each change I’ve gone by — whether or not or not it’s bodily, financially, emotionally, spiritually — I’ve accomplished the whole lot I presumably might to stroll it like I discuss it.”
That effort is going on in opposition to the backdrop of an business that also expects ladies to freeze in time. I carry up Halle Berry’s latest feedback about how ladies are pressured to remain 35 ceaselessly — and her frustration with California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoing laws that might have expanded menopause-related care.
“We’re anticipated to be productive members of society and earn cash and pay payments,” Jayne says. “However hey — we want somewhat assist round right here.”
Her personal “assist” consists of working with an anti-aging physician to steadiness hormones as she’s gone by menopause. “I actually suppose it’s great,” she says. “I believe that’s a person journey for each lady … however I discover it to be very helpful.”If she might inform her 30-year-old self something now, it wouldn’t be about skincare or serums.
“It ain’t going to finish up the best way you thought,” she says. “You’re right here. Get ready, honey. It’s about to be actual powerful in about 20 years.”
Coming from her, it doesn’t sound like a warning a lot as a promise: It will likely be onerous, and you’ll survive it.
“I’m in a efficiency enterprise,” she says merely. “I present up on digicam. I’ve to point out up in the perfect psychological area, the perfect emotional area, the perfect bodily area. This job is tough.” That’s been very true in recent times.
‘I take pleasure in a little bit of madness’: a decade on RHOBH
Any Bravo viewer is aware of the extreme scrutiny of Jayne’s private life has been each exhausting and deeply public. Jayne filed for divorce from Girardi in 2020 after greater than 20 years of marriage. Girardi, a once-prominent lawyer identified for partnering with the real-life Erin Brockovich, was disbarred in 2022. He is at present serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted of 4 counts of wire fraud. Throughout final week’s episode of RHOBH, she admitted to nonetheless being “heartbroken” over the entire scenario. Largely, although, she’s prepared to maneuver on.
“I don’t wish to romanticize the previous,” Jayne says, “and I’m actually selecting to reside within the current and stay up for the longer term.”
“Ahead,” is how she describes the period viewers are seeing this season. “There’s gentle on the finish of a really lengthy, darkish tunnel, and I nonetheless have a methods to go, however I actually really feel good, and I’m hopeful.”
However she additionally is aware of what she’s signing up for when she says sure to a different season. The brand new episodes, which air on Thursdays on Bravo, begin “superbly,” she teases, earlier than friendships inevitably get stress-tested.
“Friendships rupture, and there are some scorching moments between Kyle [Richards], Dorit [Kemsley] and myself,” she says. “And that’s OK, as a result of this stuff occur. There’s additionally some new power, which I believe viewers could admire.”
What has meant essentially the most to her are the quiet responses from followers, not the noise. She nonetheless remembers recommendation from former castmate Yolanda Hadid: “Pay attention, Erika, you may solely be your self, and don’t fear about being like anyone else, as a result of the viewers goes to attach with every lady in numerous methods.”
If being good at actuality TV is a ability, Jayne has it. She’s sharp, dramatic and fairly philosophical about the entire experiment.
“It is a distinctive alternative. It comes with quite a lot of reward and quite a lot of threat, and typically there are days when it feels prefer it’s an excessive amount of, after which there are occasions which are completely magical,” she explains. “It’s an expertise of a lifetime. Only a few folks get to do that, and definitely only a few get to do it for a decade, and what can I say? I take pleasure in a little bit of madness.”
Nonetheless, she doesn’t sit round rewatching her best hits or headlines. “I don’t watch outdated seasons as a result of I’ve tried to remain within the current second,” she says.
A brand new chapter
Outdoors of Beverly Hills, Jayne is embracing her turntables period as DJ Fairly Mess, reconnecting with the membership tradition that first formed her in New York within the late ’80s and early ’90s.
“After I moved to New York Metropolis in 1989, all I did was go to golf equipment and I liked membership music,” she says. “That’s what Erika Jayne is: a dance music artist. I really like these information and I really like enjoying different folks’s information. I really like a celebration. I really like going to a membership. And that’s what DJ Fairly Mess is all about.”
She needs to carry again the social, sweaty, messy attraction of actual nightlife.
“That social side of individuals speaking to at least one one other, folks dancing, folks listening to chill music,” she says. “What I’m actually right here for is an effective time and good music. Actually, that’s it. And I take pleasure in it. I adore it.”
In February, she’ll head to Australia for a run of DJ dates. She’s additionally contemporary off an amazing run on Broadway and lights up when she talks about being on stage.
“It’s my most favourite factor on this planet to do,” she says. “Whether or not it’s music, dance, DJing … whether or not it’s performing, all of it — the artistic arts for me, performing arts is the place I reside and I adore it.”
Offstage, she’s studying to be extra protecting of different folks in her orbit. After years when, as she places it, “a lot of my life was dragged out” and scrutinized, the entertainer now retains sure issues to herself.
“I hold my private relationships near my vest and I do this for them,” she says. “They don’t deserve that. They deserve peace.”
Her son, now an grownup who’s a police officer, is likely one of the folks she tries to defend. So is the person she’s at present seeing.
“I’m courting, and it’s very nice,” she shares. “I actually like him and I believe it’s great.”
Between a brand new man, thrilling profession alternatives and one other actuality TV run, it’s little surprise why Jayne is so eager to give attention to what’s forward.
“A lot has occurred within the final 5 years,” she says. “I proceed to place my life again collectively and develop, and we get to see that [this year].”
