Jen Shah took full responsibility for her crimes nearly four months after she was released from prison following a fraud conviction.
“I was wrong. I made wrong decisions. I should have done things differently,” she told People in her first post-prison interview.
“I should have been more diligent. And I’m deeply remorseful and sorry for my actions and for my part. I take full responsibility,” the former “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star added.
Shah pleaded guilty to defrauding thousands of people — including the elderly and vulnerable — via a nationwide telemarketing scheme in 2022.
However, the former Bravo star, 52, claimed she “disregarded red flags” when getting into a business she initially thought was legit.
“It’s a long and a very complex journey that brought me to this point. And without re-litigating it, I became involved in the case because I made horrible business decisions and I disregarded huge red flags,” she told the outlet.
“I allowed the lines to be blurred between personal friendships and ethical business practices. And in essence, I trusted the wrong people at a very vulnerable time in my life,” Shah added.
“I thought I was doing the right thing for the majority of the time. I was working under people who were running these companies.”
Shah said she believed the companies she worked with were actually delivering services to customers.
“What happened was down the line, people that I worked with were working with a lot of other people,” she told People.
“Once that initial fulfillment was happening, things were happening beyond the point of sale with that customer that I didn’t know about,” the ex-reality star explained.
Jen shared that at the time of her arrest, she had been dealing with “personal pain” — including a separation with her husband, Sharrieff Shah — that clouded her judgment.
“We were on the verge of a divorce. I was overwhelmed with immense grief from the death of my grandmother, my father and my aunt, all in a very short period of time. I was spiraling deeper into my previously diagnosed clinical depression,” she said.
“And the reason I say all that is not as an excuse. Because it’s not like I was making good business decisions and then I woke up one morning and all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Oh, I made a bad business decision,’” she added.
“This is the totality of everything that was going on and the overlapping of what I was dealing with personally. And I tried to avoid and numb all of that with alcohol and just avoid it. I trusted the wrong people at a very vulnerable time in my life.”
In January 2023, Jen was sentenced to six and a half years behind bars for her crimes. She reported to prison the following month.
After the mom of two’s sentence was reduced multiple times, she was released from prison in December 2025 after serving three years at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas.
ABC’s “Nightline” captured footage showing the emotional moment Jen was reunited with her husband and their two sons, Sharrieff Jr., 32, and Omar, 23.
As for her time in prison, Jen said the facility “took [her] breath away” when she first walked in.
“You hear people say it’s ‘Camp Cupcake’ — it’s not. It’s prison. I just thought, ‘This cannot be where I’m going to be every day,’” she told People.
Now that Jen is back in Utah with her family, she is working to make amends for the crimes she committed — including paying more than $6.5 million in restitution.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m accepting responsibility, and I’ve made it my mission to make sure that people are paid back.”
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