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Tamra Judge is sharing what Shannon Beador did off-camera that led to the end of their years-long friendship.
While also opening up about what went down on the night of Shannon’s DUI arrest and in the weeks that followed, the 56-year-old Real Housewives of Orange County star revealed Vicki Gunvalson‘s thoughts on Shannon’s alleged “drinking problem,” admitted to keeping Shannon’s drinking a secret, and looked back on the demise of their relationship.
“[Shannon] knows that I know so much, and she’s so afraid, like, I’m just gonna discredit her and make her look bad, which is horrible. It’s absolutely horrible,” Tamra admitted to Entertainment Tonight on July 24. “She wants to tell lies about me to make me look bad. I had to tell lies about her to make her look good for so many years.”
Following Shannon’s DUI in September 2023, Tamra said she was “by Shannon’s side.” However, everything changed after they began touring with Vicki, 62, for their Tres Amigas show, which Tamra wanted to cancel in the wake of her castmate’s legal drama.
“I thought that maybe Shannon needed some professional help, and that she should take a beat from just being on tour, and all that pressure with everything that was coming her way at that time,” Tamra reasoned.
After the ladies’ first show, Tamra said she learned that Shannon, 60, had allegedly “got drunk” and said “horrible things” to someone she knows.
“I kind of let it slide,” she shared. “And then, I had told her, I said, ‘Listen, I am not going to tell you what was said, but some things were said and I don’t appreciate it. If you continue to talk about me like this, I don’t want to be involved in this. I don’t need to do this show. You need to do this show. So, figure it out … [But] she did it again.”
According to Tamra, she was “trying to help” Shannon, all while Shannon was “talking behind [her] back.” In fact, not only had she been supporting Shannon, but she’d also been keeping her drinking “a secret.”
“She had called me many times after the DUI so drunk, often times calling me, going off on something, hanging up and calling me again, and doing the exact same conversation. Not remembering it!” Tamra revealed.
Because Shannon was refusing to go to rehab, despite being “depressed” and “always crying,” Tamra began to feel that the situation had become “toxic and exhausting.”
“I was worried she was gonna fall down her stairs, get in an accident, something like that, and when this happened, I told her, I said, ‘This is a wake-up call, you need to get help…’ and she goes, ‘OK, I know! I know!’” Tamra recalled. “When she got the DUI, she told me, personally, that she is going to therapy to figure out why she is dating the wrong men.”
Looking back on the night of Shannon’s DUI, Tamra said her then-friend became upset after running into Alexis Bellino, 47, who is now dating her ex-boyfriend, John Janssen, 60, at a bar.
“The actual night of her DUI, she had text me from the restaurant — and I knew she was drunk. I could tell by the way she was texting — and she went off, because Alexis had walked in the door,” Tamra revealed. “She goes, ‘I am going to go after her!’ and I am like, ‘Just be nice just be nice. Alexis is not a mean girl. Be nice.’”
“What she does is, when somebody isn’t aligned with her or agree with her decisions … she wants to destroy that person,” Tamra continued. “She got mad at John, she tried to destroy his reputation. She gets mad at me, she tries to destroy my reputation to make herself look better.”
“I don’t like to be around toxic people that just talk behind everybody’s back all the time,” she added.
In addition to her falling out with Shannon, Tamra is also estranged from Vicki.
“I didn’t know we had a problem. Evidently, she has been saying a ton of horrible things about me. You will see, she is on the show this season. We have a ton of fun,” she admitted, noting that she was “sad” and “disappointed” to see Vicki turn on her.
“You want to stay by Shannon’s side, that’s fine, but you personally have told me, ‘Yeah, she has a drinking problem…’” Tamra claimed. “I said, ‘If you want to enable her, go right ahead, but I am not doing it anymore.’”
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 18 airs Thursdays at 9/8c on Bravo.
