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Erika Jayne offered an update on her relationship with her estranged husband Thomas Girardi during an interview on Tuesday.
As she also addressed her drama with Denise Richards, 52, on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and looked back on her castmates’ many “personal attacks,” Erika, 52, revealed she recently “blocked” Tom, 84, from calling her and confirmed her Dutch shepherd Tiago has died.
“I had to euthanize Tiago two weeks ago. I had to put my dog to sleep,” Erika told PEOPLE of the 12-year-old she described as her “best friend” on October 24. “It’s just been really sad for me, and just it’s been tough.”
“The house is quiet,” she continued. “My boy’s gone. So… yeah… I’ve been really grieving. And I didn’t do one of those Instagram announcements, but it just feels right to share it.”
Erika got Tiago from former U.S. Navy SEAL Mike Ritland, who trains K9s for personal protection, as an adult dog after her German shepherd, Andy, passed away from cancer.
“Tiago lived a really long time for a shepherd,” Erika noted. “He had an amazing life.”
And due to the past footage of RHOBH, she’ll always have access to their memories.
“The one really good thing about the show is that he will live on forever,” she noted. “That brings me enormous comfort.”
As she grieves the loss of Tiago, Erika is busy with her Las Vegas residency, Bet It All on Blonde.
“It’s been amazing,” she said of the show. “I love it and am so grateful for the experience, I really am. It’s been a rebirth in a lot of ways and a chance to introduce a newer version of myself as I really launch into this next chapter.”
While Erika has said that her residency is a “dream come true,” that isn’t to say that it’s silenced her critics.
“The biggest challenge has been compartmentalizing the legal battles, the personal attacks — just tuning out all the noise,” Erika admitted. “But this happens sometimes in life, where you have this great opportunity that’s supposed to be so joyous, and then you have this other thing that just steals the joy if you let it. You have to stay strong and focus on the good, but let’s be honest: everybody has a threshold, and it bleeds over sometimes. So it’s hard.”
“I think I’ve just really learned to accept that certain things are built into the game of life or my game of life,” she continued. “These things are happening. If you can accept them, then you can prepare and go forward. For me, I just did not want to be defined by a divorce and allegations. I fought very hard to be myself, and still have something for myself, and to pick up and go forward. And that’s what I’ll always do.”
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Meanwhile, during an interview on the October 24 episode of KTLA, Erika said that despite her ongoing legal drama, she’s “doing good.”
“I’m actually doing okay. Some things have been resolved. I’ve got a long way to go, which I knew that going in. These things take time. But I feel good about my position and I always have,” she stated. “You have two choices in life: You can either quit and they can run you out of town or you can stand up for yourself and put one foot in front of the other and that’s what I chose to do.”
Because her legal battles have been playing out amid production on the past few RHOBH seasons, Erika has often found herself at odds with her co-stars due to the things they’ve said about her.
“It’s very personal, especially [the] legal issues. [They’ve attacked me for that] relentlessly for two years. And you do take that home with you and it does bleed over and when people you work with or you consider your friends say hurtful things to you,” she confessed. “It’s such a weird experience and if you haven’t done it, it’s really hard to articulate, ‘Wait, is this my friend? Why would you say that? You know I’m going through these things. we know each other.’ It’s bizarre… It’s entertainment but it’s hard when your life is entertainment.”
Every time Erika finds herself in the headlines, she cringes knowing the topic will likely become a storyline on the show.
“Eight seasons in, I can tell you exactly what’s going in,” she shared.
That said, she still believes appearing on RHOBH is “worth it.”
“I’ve had a lot of opportunities from being on [RHOBH], one of them being my residency in Vegas. So I look at it as, it’s a give and take, and for me, the balance is more pros than cons,” she revealed. “Obviously the last two years were miserable but I’m in a place where I’m rebuilding, picking myself up and you get to see that this season.”
Also this season, fans will see the return of Denise.
“I wasn’t [expecting her to return] and the interesting thing was that Denise picked a fight with me when she really should’ve saved that energy for Brandi Glanville, Lisa Rinna, and Teddi Mellencamp,” Erika said of their season 13 feud. “It’s just that I was the only one that was there.”
Erika then revealed what prompted her to block Tom.
“I had to put [my dog] to sleep two weeks ago and it was a day in which Tom Girardi was calling me 20 times a day and I just said, ‘You know what? I can’t do this.’ And I blocked him,” she shared. “So [he’s] been blocked for two weeks. So no, we’re not speaking.”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 13 premieres tonight, October 25, at 8/7c on Bravo.
