What Is Erika Jayne Thinking?

On Wednesday, news broke that Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star and sometimes pop singer Erika Jayne was being sued, alongside husband Tom Girardi, for an alleged scheme to hide settlement funds from plane crash victims through their divorce. Class action law firm Edelson PC claimed that the split was meant to “route the money to friends and family and satisfy other outstanding debts,” and added that the couple is “on the verge of financial collapse and locked in a downward spiral of mounting debts and dwindling funds.”

The suit was undoubtedly a bombshell, but it joins a cacophony of chaos surrounding the couple and once-superstar lawyer Tom Girardi, who is also facing two other fraud cases from past clients. It’s all just a bit much to take in, especially for Erika Jayne, who has spent a considerable amount of time onscreen proclaiming the virtues of their love to co-stars, evidence through the seemingly charmed life she presents onscreen. So what, if anything, is she thinking right now?

From the looks of it, quite a bit.

Her first tweet since the scandal broke was a detailed look at her crumbling visage of perfection. She wrote: “High drama,” over a photo of herself rendered against a stark blue background, Jayne, in the photo she posted, stares into the distance, her face a stoic mask, crafted to betray nothing. The elegant slope of her couture dress, and the severely straightened hair, with subdued makeup and styling, is the re-enactment of elegance. But it lacks something at its core—a spark of life or a sense of hope. She looks like a statue of a ruler from a long-dead and forgotten civilization, found after explored fell through a hole in the ruin, the agonies painted across her face lost and smoothed over by the sands of time.

Her second photo, however, was one I am almost positive I have seen before. That, or she just has a limited amount of poses she can realistically accomplish. Over it, she wrote nothing. But the black and white color palette, her bare skin, and all of it outlined only by what looks to be thousands and thousands of dollars in jewelry—it’s a bit cheeky! The message could be: “You can take everything from me: my clothes, my house, my career. But you will never, ever take my jewelry.”

I’m also not an art critic, however, so who really knows!

Erika Jayne has a lot on her mind, but as an ordinary woman myself, not yet enchanted by riches and fame and a powerful spouse, I am unable to read her mind. I’d ask the lovely producers at the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to give me some small clue as to what’s racing through her jewel-encrusted brain, but a significant chunk of the cast has contracted coronavirus at this point. While I wait for them to heal, I will stare at these photographs in a non-creepy way, desperate to understand a woman who is as mysterious as ever.