Meredith Marks admitted on the latest episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City that she hired a cyber investigator to pry into the lives of each and every one of her co-stars after members of her family received text threats.
While sitting down with the cast amid a tense Mother’s Day trip to Zion, which ended with Jen Shah accusing Meredith of having “10 motherf-cking other boyfriends,” Meredith dropped a bomb on her cast mates. And, after the show, a number of them reacted to her stunning reveal.
“What a waste of money,” Heather Gay said of the action Meredith took against her and the rest of the cast on the January 16 episode of the RHOSLC: After Show.
According to Heather, all the investigation likely turned up about her is that she “goes to Applebee’s, TGIFridays and a lot of In-N-Out.” Still, she found it unsettling that someone who claimed to be her friend had hired someone to investigate her.
“It’s one thing to pursue horrible messages you’re receiving or threats or someone that’s coming after your son but it’s another thing to pursue people that you are esteeming to be your friends and are conducting yourself as if they are your friends,” she offered.
If Heather were in Meredith’s shoes, she said she would never hire an investigator because she wouldn’t want to know about anything they prefer to withhold from her.
“If you’re my friend, you tell me what you’re comfortable telling me and I’ll be your friends on those terms,” she explained. “Friendships should not be based on our resumes or our background checks so I think I felt sad that I was relegated to the same treatment as someone who had made death threats and been attacking her son [Brooks Marks].”
Heather then suggested that the only reason someone would hire an investigator is if they want to get dirt on someone for “leverage,” to “shame” them, or to make sure they could trust them.
“And I would hope that no one would need an investigator to tell them those things about me,” Heather added.
“Luckily, most of us live very clean, ordinary lives but lie, wow, where’s the trust?” wondered Whitney Rose.
In her own segment, Jen was a bit more blunt and said she made a point to drive the issue of Meredith’s investigator home with Lisa Barlow, who had upset Jen earlier this season by refusing to admit that Meredith had done wrong to her and instead confirmed herself as Switzerland amid their ongoing battle.
“I’m kind of looking at Lisa, like, ‘Oh this is good, hold on a second, let me get my popcorn and my orange Fanta soda. Your friend hired a private investigator on you too? Let’s go around the table. What did you find out?’” Jen recalled, also admitting that wasn’t sure if Meredith was only saying she hired someone to investigate the entire cast so she looked like less of a “piece of sh-t” for hiring someone to investigate her.
Jen then suggested that for Meredith to conduct such a vast investigation, she must have something to hide.
“But according to Meredith, she hired a private investigator on everybody. What are you worried about? What do you have to protect, or you’re so worried about, that you have to hire private investigators?” she asked.
“What is going on? Because you’re freaking me out because it doesn’t make any damn sense. Why are you so f-cking paranoid?” Jen continued.
In response to questions regarding what made her consider an investigation, Meredith said the idea came about after her family, and Heather, received these threatening text messages that “were written in a similar vernacular.”
Because Meredith knew that the number of people that had both Heather and Brooks’ phone numbers was small, she decided, after a chat with the investigator, that the best course of action was to investigate everyone that had access to their numbers.
Meredith also said that she wasn’t conducting personal investigations on Heather and the rest of the women. Instead, the investigator was looking into their ties to the messages “and if they thought that they came from one of those, that small group of people.”
“They were handed everybody’s information. Anyone who I could think of that would have Brooks’ and Heather’s phone numbers, their contacts were handed over, including Heather. I thought there’s no way Heather could be this twisted and sick but let’s roll it out,” she revealed, adding that she “never [hired anyone] to investigate specifically Jen.”
RHOSLC Live Viewing – This is also the live viewing thread for tonight’s all-new episode of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City season two, so feel free to share your thoughts below as the episode airs at 9/8c on Bravo.