Speaker 1: If you look up the word narcissist in a.
Speaker 2: Dictionary, narcissist an extremely self centered person who has an
Speaker 2: exaggerated sense of self importancesist.
Speaker 1: You'll find a lengthy definition describing someone who always makes
Speaker 1: themselves the focus of everyone's attention. A person who makes
Speaker 1: whatever situation you're going through about them. A person who
Speaker 1: can commit serious crimes then later turn around and claim
Speaker 1: to be the victim.
Speaker 2: Narcissists may play the victim if they believe they gain
Speaker 2: something from it well.
Speaker 1: In June of twenty twenty one, Bravo's Real Housewives of
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City star Jen Shaw makes a public declaration
Speaker 1: to the judge in her criminal case, a criminal case
Speaker 1: accusing her of masterminding an elaborate scheme to defraud thousands
Speaker 1: of people out of millions of dollars and from about
Speaker 1: as far left field as a person can come from
Speaker 1: and still be on planet Earth. Jen states to the
Speaker 1: judge regarding the criminal case against her, that quote, I.
Speaker 3: Was the victim of multiple crimes by an individual known
Speaker 3: to me who stole money from me, violated an order
Speaker 3: of protection issued by a judge, and assaulted me, causing
Speaker 3: my physical injuries.
Speaker 1: A quick note before we go on. I know this
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like the real Jenshaw, but it's actually
Speaker 1: an actor reading from a declaration. Jenshaw wrote to the judge.
Speaker 1: You'll hear more of this kind of thing throughout the season. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Jenshaw continues now writing about some guy who supposedly assaulted her.
Speaker 3: He was arrested for, among other things, stealing from me
Speaker 3: in New York County, New York. The arresting officer was
Speaker 3: a detective of the New York Police Department. After his
Speaker 3: initial arrests and arraignment, a judge issued a temporary order
Speaker 3: of protection, which required the individual to stay away from me.
Speaker 3: He did not stay away from me, and said physically
Speaker 3: assaulted me on March twenty seventh and twenty seventeen in
Speaker 3: Salt Lake City, Utah, causing physical injuries documented by photographs
Speaker 3: and a trip to the hospital.
Speaker 1: So jen Shaw is being prosecuted for federal crimes. Then
Speaker 1: suddenly she flips the script, bringing up something she says
Speaker 1: happened to her that literally has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: what she's being charged with. It seems like she just
Speaker 1: wants to play the victim at this point. Sounds a
Speaker 1: lot like the definition of a narcissist, right, But what
Speaker 1: does any of that have to do with the many
Speaker 1: criminal exploits of con artist Jennifer Kai Kalani Shaw simply
Speaker 1: put everything. I'm Jonathan Walton and this is season four
Speaker 1: of Queen of the Khan The Unreal, Episode one. I
Speaker 1: couldn't take my eyes off her.
Speaker 4: Jenny, you can be okay, Yeah, I just gotta go
Speaker 4: figure out what's going on. What's going on? I've just
Speaker 4: got a phone call and strap Stain years in the hospital.
Speaker 1: It's March thirtieth, twenty twenty one, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Speaker 5: A fleet of black SUVs.
Speaker 1: And a sprinter van have haphazardly pulled up in the
Speaker 1: middle of a strip mall parking lot. Bravo's Real Housewives
Speaker 1: of Salt Lake City is shooting season two of their show.
Speaker 1: They're outside a shop called Beauty Labin Laser, owned by
Speaker 1: cast member Heather Gay, but one of the show's most
Speaker 1: outspoken stars, Jenshaw, is in full panic mode. She's the
Speaker 1: picture of Hollywood glam, with professionally braided hair and glitzy makeup,
Speaker 1: clad in a dark brown fur coat. I'm really hoping
Speaker 1: it's fake fur, but I don't think think it is regardless.
Speaker 1: Jen Shaw is scrambling now to leave set after supposedly
Speaker 1: receiving a disturbing phone call about her husband.
Speaker 4: He has internal bleeding, so I need to go there, Like,
Speaker 4: are you still on Salt Lake? But yeah, we're still here,
Speaker 4: glad us if you need any okay, I will so.
Speaker 1: Jen jumps into a pickup truck with a driver and
Speaker 1: starts speeding down the highway. Ten minutes later, federal agents
Speaker 1: with Homeland Security and officers from the New York City
Speaker 1: Police Department descend on that strip mall parking lot.
Speaker 6: We're looking for Jen Saw.
Speaker 7: She just like, wow, I have like swap team minut stuff.
Speaker 8: What the heck?
Speaker 1: In the end, agents in unmarked vehicles suddenly appear behind
Speaker 1: that dark gray f one point fifty Jen's being driven
Speaker 1: in and she gets pulled over and unceremoniously arrested handcuffed
Speaker 1: in a random parking lot on the side of a
Speaker 1: cold and dusty Utah road. At this point, Jen Shaw
Speaker 1: is accused of scamming millions and millions of dollars, and
Speaker 1: dozens of police officers and federal agents want her behind.
Speaker 9: Bars, and she might have had things in place, knowing
Speaker 9: this was coming. Because so many of her co defendants
Speaker 9: were already arrested and already going through the process, she
Speaker 9: knew that one day the Feds were going to come
Speaker 9: knocking at her door.
Speaker 1: That's the amazing Emily D. Baker, a former prosecutor with
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office who's now the internet's
Speaker 1: go to legal analyst and host of the hugely successful
Speaker 1: Emily Show podcast. And you were the only female on
Speaker 1: all male water polo team.
Speaker 7: I was.
Speaker 9: I played water polo in high school and at the time,
Speaker 9: our high school did not have a women's water polo program.
Speaker 1: I imagine it took some talk in convincing to allow
Speaker 1: them to put you the only female on an all
Speaker 1: male team, Like how'd that go down? Can be very persuasive,
Speaker 1: and that's what made Emily a force to reckon with
Speaker 1: in the DA's office, and it's what makes her an
Speaker 1: extremely insightful legal analyst. Add to that, she's a huge
Speaker 1: fan of the Housewives franchise. She's got the pop culture
Speaker 1: equivalent of a PhD in this stuff. And as you
Speaker 1: can probably tell, I never even went to Housewives Elementary
Speaker 1: school before this season of the podcast. I never saw
Speaker 1: a single episode, but Emily she's a Bravo Rhodes scholar
Speaker 1: with a concentration in Jenshaw.
Speaker 9: Genshaw is quite a character, and she was in for
Speaker 9: all of the seasons. Most of the scenes. She was
Speaker 9: driving storylines towards her.
Speaker 10: You're gonna go with Mary, it's your grandfather.
Speaker 9: Only Genshaw would scream that in a restaurant.
Speaker 5: What is that about? Is she having sex with her grant?
Speaker 5: Did she marry her grandfather? What's the story?
Speaker 9: It was very much a moment. So one of the
Speaker 9: other housewives in the first two seasons before she left,
Speaker 9: ran a church in Utah and her grandmother had been
Speaker 9: the head of the church. Her grandmother passed and Mary
Speaker 9: Cosby married her grandmother's husband, so he is her step grandfather,
Speaker 9: not her biological grandfather. And it was a very interesting
Speaker 9: part of the first season of Real Housewives of Salt
Speaker 9: Lake City. So Mary was in fact married to her stepgrandfather.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 9: Interesting.
Speaker 5: It's like a reverse Woody Allen, I.
Speaker 9: Mean, with their age gap. It just felt very strange
Speaker 9: and kind of surreal to watch. And then to see
Speaker 9: that throne in Mary's face by Jen was a very
Speaker 9: weird moment.
Speaker 1: But Jen Shaw is the master of weird moments. Everything
Speaker 1: she says and does is just so outrageous you can't
Speaker 1: look away, and Emily thinks that might be by design.
Speaker 9: It felt to me, as someone who has watched Real
Speaker 9: Housewives since the very beginning of Orange County, that Jen
Speaker 9: kind of took notes from the housewives that were the
Speaker 9: mainstays of different franchises and made sure that she was
Speaker 9: bringing that on screen, bringing the drinking, the fighting, not
Speaker 9: afraid to say things that were absolutely outrageous, getting mad,
Speaker 9: but then apologizing so people would still film with her.
Speaker 1: She watched all the other seasons of Real Housewives, studied them,
Speaker 1: figured out who the breakout stars are, and then became
Speaker 1: an amalgam of all of those personality traits herself.
Speaker 9: I think, so this was a calculated, curated persona.
Speaker 1: But here's what I can't figure out. When Jenshaw is
Speaker 1: sitting on that sprinter van on the day where she
Speaker 1: eventually gets arrested by the FEDS, she gets a phone
Speaker 1: call and then gets a panic look in her face
Speaker 1: and tells her fellow cast members the call was about
Speaker 1: her husband Shaw, who everyone including Jen, calls coach because
Speaker 1: he's a football coach at the University of Utah.
Speaker 4: He has internal pleading, So I need to go there, Like,
Speaker 4: are you still on Salt Lake? Yeah, we're still here.
Speaker 4: If you need any.
Speaker 1: Okay, I will So at this point, I'm thinking it's
Speaker 1: the Feds who made that call to Chen to trick
Speaker 1: her into going somewhere where they'd be waiting to arrest her.
Speaker 1: I mean, they do that kind of stuff all the time.
Speaker 1: In season three of Queen of the Khan, when we
Speaker 1: did Danielle Miller, federal agents tricked her into opening her
Speaker 1: door by having the lobby call up and say there's
Speaker 1: something in the lobby, it's an emergency, come down quick,
Speaker 1: and as soon as she opens.
Speaker 5: The door, they rush in, throw her up against the
Speaker 5: wall and cuffer. What do you know about that phone call?
Speaker 1: Was that federal agent's calling to trick her into going
Speaker 1: home so they could arrest her.
Speaker 9: Oh, there's no way federal agents called her to lure
Speaker 9: her to come home, because we know they were en
Speaker 9: route to the parking lot because they show up there
Speaker 9: so quickly thereafter, so we know a team showed up
Speaker 9: and did the sir to warrent at her house and
Speaker 9: then a team showed up into the search hoorn at
Speaker 9: Stuart's house, all at the same time.
Speaker 1: Stewart is Jen's assistant, one of them. Anyway, in season
Speaker 1: one of the show, Jen claims she had seven others, and.
Speaker 9: They try to have multiple teams to hit locations at
Speaker 9: the same time so that somebody doesn't get tipped off.
Speaker 9: The Feds are trying to avoid the circumstance that happened
Speaker 9: here where somebody gets a phone call and then has
Speaker 9: time to take off. That's what they don't want to
Speaker 9: have happened. They want to try to take everyone into
Speaker 9: custody almost simultaneously and execute the search warrants. When you're
Speaker 9: looking at fraud cases, one of the concerns is they
Speaker 9: can call somebody and have computer's wife have evidence destroyed remotely.
Speaker 9: So they don't want people getting tipped off early that
Speaker 9: this is going down, because it might actually hamper their
Speaker 9: investigation team.
Speaker 1: They want to secure the.
Speaker 9: Person away from their cell phones immediately, and they want
Speaker 9: to secure all the tech devices immediately.
Speaker 1: That phone call she got was that someone on her
Speaker 1: side quote unquote trying to warn her. That phone call
Speaker 1: she got was that someone on her side, quote unquote
Speaker 1: trying to warn her.
Speaker 9: I think she was absolutely getting warned. It could have
Speaker 9: been somebody that saw federal agents at the house. I'm
Speaker 9: not sure who was on the phone, but I am
Speaker 9: very confident that it wasn't Coach going to the hospital
Speaker 9: with internal bleeding.
Speaker 1: That was all a lie that she made up.
Speaker 9: She just made that up on the fly, on the
Speaker 9: spot and in a way that others wouldn't question her.
Speaker 9: Once it's like my husband's going to the hospital he
Speaker 9: has internal bleeding. The other women aren't going to ask
Speaker 9: that many questions on camera. And you could see it
Speaker 9: because Bravo editing is so cheeky. You could see her
Speaker 9: side eye the camera. It wasn't because she just got
Speaker 9: worried that her husband was going to the hospital, because
Speaker 9: Jen would generally lean into something like that for a storyline,
Speaker 9: most housewives would. She turned off her micpack and looked
Speaker 9: at where the cameras were because the information she was
Speaker 9: getting are the Feds are rating your house and Stort's house,
Speaker 9: and that's when she decided to leave. I don't think
Speaker 9: she wanted to be arrested on camera.
Speaker 1: There's so many different tentacles to this scam that they
Speaker 1: wanted to get everyone at the same time. And even
Speaker 1: as hard as they tried and as many people as
Speaker 1: they put on it, still someone was able to sneak
Speaker 1: away and call Jen and say, hey, run, they're coming
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 9: I have to wonder if she thought being on Real
Speaker 9: Housewives insulated her a little bit, like almost, I'm a
Speaker 9: public figure, now, why would you do this to me?
Speaker 9: Not realizing that the FEDS love to make a spectacle
Speaker 9: out of somebody like you become the lesson. It's like, oh,
Speaker 9: you have a higher profile. Good, We're going to remind
Speaker 9: everyone that this is what you can't do. So we'll
Speaker 9: go ahead and use that profile to make a high
Speaker 9: profile arrest. They're not going to shy away from that.
Speaker 11: Thank god Jenshaw ended up being a con artist because
Speaker 11: she really helped to puts out like on the map.
Speaker 1: That's Zach Peter, host of the podcast No Filter with
Speaker 1: Zach Peter. He's kind of a Housewives expert.
Speaker 11: Well, I'm the Housewives expert, Jonathan. Not only do I
Speaker 11: watch all the housewives, but I know most of them.
Speaker 11: I've interviewed all of them. And every time you see
Speaker 11: a headline about a housewife, it's probably because they spilled
Speaker 11: some tea on my show.
Speaker 1: The Real Housewives franchise has been a cash cow for
Speaker 1: Bravo ever since it premiered nearly twenty years ago.
Speaker 11: Most people don't realize like Bravo used to like show
Speaker 11: Soft Foreign back in the day, and then eventually they
Speaker 11: started to build out their culture programming, and then happened
Speaker 11: to do Real Housewives of Orange County, which was really
Speaker 11: just to look at some affluent women that lived in
Speaker 11: the OC.
Speaker 4: And then just everything in My world.
Speaker 11: And from there it kind of just continued to build.
Speaker 11: And then they brought Atlanta and New York and New Jersey,
Speaker 11: and every time they brought a new franchise that got
Speaker 11: more and more outlandish, and we started getting the table
Speaker 11: flips and the leg throws and all of that sort
Speaker 11: of stuff.
Speaker 5: They throw legs, legs.
Speaker 11: It was one with the prosthetic leg and she in
Speaker 11: the finale threw her prosthetic leg across the room.
Speaker 12: Only thing that is artificial or faith about me.
Speaker 11: She threw her leg, her actual legs them out after
Speaker 11: I think somebody eventually picked up the leg and gave
Speaker 11: it back to her.
Speaker 13: So that she didn't have to hobble on out.
Speaker 9: They say, this is the last straw.
Speaker 11: I mean, this is the last leg I mean. And
Speaker 11: now we're in a great time where there are so
Speaker 11: many crazy legal scandals that are making it even more
Speaker 11: culturally relevant.
Speaker 1: Enter The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: Bravo's tenth Real Housewives franchise.
Speaker 4: A quick lesson on how to be a good Mormon.
Speaker 14: Don't drink, don't swear, treat your body like a temple.
Speaker 5: Why do a Housewives in Salt Lake City, Utah?
Speaker 11: I feel like Salt Lake they did it for the
Speaker 11: Mormon aspect and for like the polygamy side of it.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 11: I think they thought they would find some interesting housewives,
Speaker 11: and they knew they wanted a branch out, and so
Speaker 11: they just figured Salt Lake was the best place to explore,
Speaker 11: you know, a niche community. And we see a lot
Speaker 11: of the Mormon stuff, we see a little bit of
Speaker 11: the open relationship stuff.
Speaker 1: But from the very first day of shooting The Real
Speaker 1: Housewives of Salt Lake City, there was one woman who
Speaker 1: quickly stood out from the rest.
Speaker 6: You can't buy the tids because my plastic surgeon retired.
Speaker 11: Jenshaw was the breakout star of real house as of
Speaker 11: Salt Lake City. Do you understand she was the one
Speaker 11: that people recognized because she had such a big personality
Speaker 11: and such an infectious personality. Right, She gave good sound bites,
Speaker 11: she knew how to give good interviews, she knew how
Speaker 11: to bring the drama.
Speaker 1: Do you bitch?
Speaker 14: Do you hope she's okay?
Speaker 1: How did Jenshaw portray herself on Housewives?
Speaker 11: I think Jenshaw really wanted us to believe that she
Speaker 11: was a very successful business woman. She had multiple businesses
Speaker 11: that was bringing in all of this money to fund
Speaker 11: this affluent lifestyle that she was trying to portray on
Speaker 11: the show. And on top of that, she was a
Speaker 11: stellar mother. You know, she was raising two boys. She
Speaker 11: was a devoted wife. So she really tried to sell
Speaker 11: us on her being the everywoman, you know, the superwoman
Speaker 11: really and she could juggle it all and that's what
Speaker 11: made her an authority and the perfect housewife.
Speaker 1: But it turns out the perfect housewife is not so perfect.
Speaker 1: In fact, her origin story is fraught with ridicule, racism
Speaker 1: and an overwhelming urge to show them all.
Speaker 14: My name is Amy Jones Glenn and I'm from orm Utah.
Speaker 14: I went to school with Jen mount View High School.
Speaker 14: You could pretty much recognize, you know, everybody, you kind
Speaker 14: of shared, everybody had the same classes together. We'd fit
Speaker 14: in one picture, you know, that senior class picture.
Speaker 1: Amy's right, I'm posting that senior class picture at Queen
Speaker 1: of the Khan on Instagram, so you can see the
Speaker 1: entire graduating class of Mountain View High School does actually
Speaker 1: hold in one photo. See if you can spot Jenshaw.
Speaker 1: She was born Jennifer ki Kialani Louis on October fourth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, in Provo, Utah, about forty miles south
Speaker 1: of Salt Lake City.
Speaker 12: So in Utah there's basically three pockets. There's the Ogden
Speaker 12: area pocket where Hill Air Force Base is, and then
Speaker 12: there's Salt Lake Valley, which I would say is the
Speaker 12: epitome of the Mormon Church on the east side.
Speaker 14: That's where the leaders of the Mormon Church lived, and
Speaker 14: they seem to be sort of the intellectuals and they
Speaker 14: look down on Utah Valley.
Speaker 1: And while Jen is Mormon growing up in Salt Lake City,
Speaker 1: she doesn't look like the other Mormons at all. She's
Speaker 1: of Tongan and Hawaiian descent and has darker skin than
Speaker 1: all all her friends and classmates.
Speaker 14: At school, there was a huge, huge lack of diversity.
Speaker 14: Everyone was white. There were not a lot of people
Speaker 14: that had any sort of.
Speaker 13: Color to their skin.
Speaker 14: She was exotic, i would say, compared to all of
Speaker 14: the white Mormon kids, and completely different than almost everyone
Speaker 14: at the high school.
Speaker 1: And even before high school, navigating that all white Mormon
Speaker 1: culture was painful for Jen.
Speaker 14: So Ram Junior High School had a reputation for being
Speaker 14: a very rough school. People were mistreated my sister. When
Speaker 14: we first moved up to Utah, she was made to
Speaker 14: sit on the floor of the bus by people who
Speaker 14: lived down the street. So these were people we went
Speaker 14: to church with. These were people who were good Mormons,
Speaker 14: who came from good families. My sister had glasses and
Speaker 14: braces and was going through the ugly duckling stage and
Speaker 14: these neighbors, these good kids, made her sit on the
Speaker 14: floor of the bus and they spit on her. Why
Speaker 14: they just picked on her.
Speaker 1: But Jen gets picked on for an entirely different reason
Speaker 1: her skin color. Jen's own ants has said publicly on
Speaker 1: that ABC News Hulu documentary The Housewife and the Shawshaker
Speaker 1: that Jen's life as a young girl growing up in
Speaker 1: Utah was rough.
Speaker 8: I remember her on one afternoon coming home from school.
Speaker 5: I noticed that her skin was.
Speaker 8: Just bright, had a bright, bright, bright red tint to it.
Speaker 8: And she said, I've scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, and
Speaker 8: it won't come off. And I said, we're talking about
Speaker 8: what won't come off? She said, the kids is school
Speaker 8: are calling me dirty, and I'm trying to scrub it off.
Speaker 5: It won't come off.
Speaker 8: And they saw her as different enough to ridicule her
Speaker 8: and make her feel different and feel less than.
Speaker 1: But to Jen's credit, she quickly figures out a way
Speaker 1: to rise above all the racism surrounding her and goes
Speaker 1: on to become one of the most popular girls in
Speaker 1: high school.
Speaker 14: The first time I remember seeing Jen was when we
Speaker 14: were at an assembly and out came this tiny Polynesian
Speaker 14: girl with this beautiful long hair, and she seemed to
Speaker 14: have a look of uncertainty in her eyes. And when
Speaker 14: she danced, everybody went crazy because she was such a
Speaker 14: great dancer, and everyone else was white and couldn't dance.
Speaker 14: And Jen was the center of attention, all eyes on her, cheering, applause,
Speaker 14: screaming it was like you'd think the Beatles were in
Speaker 14: the gym. She was that that fun to look at
Speaker 14: to watch. We couldn't get enough of.
Speaker 1: Her, So you were kind of like, were you like
Speaker 1: a fan? You say it was like a like she
Speaker 1: was like a celebrity. Were you like one of Were
Speaker 1: you one of the people cheering.
Speaker 14: I played the cello and did ballet, and I was
Speaker 14: probably too refined for that, but secretly I couldn't take.
Speaker 4: My eyes off of her.
Speaker 14: It was so fun to watch. I probably would never
Speaker 14: have admitted that, and I don't know why, but I
Speaker 14: everybody loved this. You know, when someone's a good dancer,
Speaker 14: you just it captivates you. I can still see in
Speaker 14: my mind's eye this insecure girl, shy even walking in
Speaker 14: in the auditorium, and just that look in her eye
Speaker 14: of insecurity. And then the lights came on, the music
Speaker 14: came on, and that girl danced, and every one loved it.
Speaker 14: We couldn't get enough of it. It could have just
Speaker 14: been gen by herself and we would have been clapping
Speaker 14: and screaming and cheering and wanting more. And maybe that's
Speaker 14: why she liked it. Maybe that was the beginning of
Speaker 14: I'm different everybody likes me and I'm special, more special, popular, cool, cheerleader,
Speaker 14: short skirt, long hair. But still there was this almost
Speaker 14: magical or wonderment in her eyes, like why is everybody
Speaker 14: cheering for me? Like what this is? I'm just Jen
Speaker 14: And I think that kind of evolved into a confidence
Speaker 14: and an expectation where she kind of came into her
Speaker 14: own where she fit into that role of popular, and
Speaker 14: there were accolades for what a fun person she was
Speaker 14: to see around.
Speaker 1: And she was a cheerleader in school, like she go
Speaker 1: to all the games and that's how she would dance
Speaker 1: as part of the cheering.
Speaker 14: Front and center, front and center because she was the
Speaker 14: only one that could move. She was the only one
Speaker 14: that had any rhythm. She was the squad, She was
Speaker 14: the cheer team.
Speaker 1: Jen Shaw was so popular in that high school and
Speaker 1: apparently made so many lifelong friends that even to this day,
Speaker 1: in light of the scandal currently englfing her, most of
Speaker 1: her classmates are refusing to talk to me. We reached
Speaker 1: out to a bunch of them and got radio silence.
Speaker 1: Some even take a Facebook commenting publicly on the Mountain
Speaker 1: View High School alumni page about our efforts to locate
Speaker 1: Jen's former classmates.
Speaker 12: So how many of us received an email asking us
Speaker 12: to spill dirt on Jen?
Speaker 13: A depilling kind of girl.
Speaker 12: Jen and I moved in different circles, but I always thought.
Speaker 2: She seemed fun and nice.
Speaker 15: I got one. I'm assuming they sent out mass messages
Speaker 15: and somehow got a list of Mountain View High School graduates.
Speaker 15: I was putting on ignoring it as well, not interested
Speaker 15: in the least in giving them any sort of information
Speaker 15: for their expose. I'm with you, I'm at Jenden Elementary School,
Speaker 15: and the last I've seen her was our five year reunion.
Speaker 2: I still think of her as the very young girl
Speaker 2: from high school.
Speaker 4: I got one as well. Not interested in becoming a
Speaker 4: professional gossip myself. I figure someone probably would, though.
Speaker 1: But there's one former student in that alumni group who's
Speaker 1: refusing to talk for an entirely different reason.
Speaker 14: I would never say anything about Jen. She scares me.
Speaker 1: Maybe this woman watches the Real Housewives and knows all
Speaker 1: too well how combustible Jenshaw can be.
Speaker 6: Because you're an evil ass bitch that is pissed off
Speaker 6: because her membership. But face tune ran out.
Speaker 1: I do you think that Jen's crazy temper and belligerence
Speaker 1: probably have something to do with her childhood. The racism,
Speaker 1: the teasing, the being Mormon of it all. Jen's high
Speaker 1: school classmate Amy Glenn, knows all too well the rigor
Speaker 1: of that kind of life.
Speaker 5: Are you Mormon?
Speaker 14: Yes, I have six children living in Utah Valley, which
Speaker 14: is often referred to as Happy Valley, which is predominantly Mormon.
Speaker 14: The things that are normal about the world are viewed
Speaker 14: as wrong here in this valley. This is a different
Speaker 14: world for women. We live in a very patriarchal society
Speaker 14: where you are absolutely supposed to follow the man's lead.
Speaker 14: You bow your head and say yes to the man.
Speaker 14: And that's how I was raised with my father, That's
Speaker 14: how I was expected to be with my husband. That's
Speaker 14: how I.
Speaker 4: Was That was it.
Speaker 14: It was complete submission. I tried with everything that I
Speaker 14: had to follow his lead.
Speaker 1: There are more than six million Mormons living in the
Speaker 1: United States right now, and a sizeable chunk of them
Speaker 1: reside in the state of Utah. Because Brigham Young founded
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City and he was the second leader of
Speaker 1: the Church of Latter day Saints. How would you describe
Speaker 1: Mormonism to someone who's never heard of it.
Speaker 14: Mormonism is an extremely family oriented, time consuming, money consuming investment,
Speaker 14: and the emphasis is on pre earth life and where
Speaker 14: you're going to go when you die, and that families
Speaker 14: can be together forever, and we should have large families,
Speaker 14: and we pay ten percent of all of our income
Speaker 14: back to the church. You go three hours to church
Speaker 14: every Sunday and then you have a couple of hours
Speaker 14: of youth activities during the week. You're very committed to
Speaker 14: this lifestyle of You didn't wear sleeveless clothes, you didn't
Speaker 14: wear two piece swimsuits, you didn't wear short shorts. You
Speaker 14: were supposed to be modest, and you didn't swear. You
Speaker 14: were expected to not drink, not smoke, be morally clean.
Speaker 1: Mormonism actually began in western New York in the eighteen twenties,
Speaker 1: when a man named Joseph Smith is said to have
Speaker 1: dug up some golden plates from a nearby hill inscribed
Speaker 1: with strange writing that looked hieroglyphic. God is then said
Speaker 1: to have helped Joseph Smith cipher those golden plates. And right,
Speaker 1: have you.
Speaker 5: Ever seen that musical the Book of Mormon?
Speaker 14: No, I have not.
Speaker 1: I saw it, and it was, It was brilliant, it
Speaker 1: was hysterical, it was amazing.
Speaker 7: I believe that y'all live on a planet pocum. I
Speaker 7: believe that Jesus has is a planet well, and I
Speaker 7: believe that the Garda mean he wasn't Jackson County, Missouri.
Speaker 1: And all these things are in lyrics of songs that
Speaker 1: the audience is laughing, thinking, oh, this is so funny,
Speaker 1: but like it's true, Like that's what Mormons believe, right.
Speaker 14: Yes, And when you say it like that, it really
Speaker 14: does sound over the top, but it is exactly spot on. You,
Speaker 14: as a member of the church, are expected to not
Speaker 14: look up anti Mormon information. You're expected to only explore
Speaker 14: the things that the prophets and leaders have said. To
Speaker 14: listen to anti Mormon sentiment, you would be running the
Speaker 14: risk of endangering your testimony, your testimony of the only
Speaker 14: true Church on earth.
Speaker 1: And Jen Shaw is a member of the only true
Speaker 1: Church on Earth, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Speaker 1: day Saints, for most of her life, but in the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties she attends the University of Utah and meets
Speaker 1: the man who would become her husband and the father
Speaker 1: of her children, Sharif Shaw, and ultimately it's her marriage
Speaker 1: to Sharif that prompts Jen to walk away from Mormonism altogether.
Speaker 6: My husband, Sharif is Muslim, but I was raised Mormon
Speaker 6: and that's all I knew until five years into my marriage.
Speaker 6: I'm like, hey, sure, If, why don't you convert to Mormonism?
Speaker 6: And he was like, are you kidding me? They didn't
Speaker 6: accept black people into the Mormon Church until in like
Speaker 6: nineteen seventy something. That's when I started questioning, you know what,
Speaker 6: I cannot sign up for a religion that didn't accept
Speaker 6: my husband and my kids. That's the point when I
Speaker 6: was like, Okay, I'm converting to Islam.
Speaker 3: Asalama leka bitches.
Speaker 1: Jen Shaw is correct. Up until the nineteen seventies, African
Speaker 1: Americans were persona non grata in the Mormon Church, and
Speaker 1: the Book of Mormon Musical confirms that fact.
Speaker 7: And I believe that in nineteen seventy eight contains his
Speaker 7: mind about black.
Speaker 1: Anyway. As a teenager, Jen works as a nanny for
Speaker 1: a doctor, and on the weekends she models at local
Speaker 1: fashion shows and does photoshoots for various magazines and online publications.
Speaker 1: But while attending the university of Utah. Jen gets pregnant
Speaker 1: and eventually drops out to help support her husband, Sharif,
Speaker 1: who's in law school at this point. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, Jen starts working in the telemarketing industry and
Speaker 1: she quickly rises up the ranks, eventually starting her own company,
Speaker 1: and she starts making a lot of money. And it's
Speaker 1: her wealth and lavish lifestyle that gets Bravo's attention when
Speaker 1: they start casting for the Real Housewives of Salt Lake
Speaker 1: City in late twenty nineteen and Jen starts building her team.
Speaker 16: My job with Denshaw was styling her and also creating,
Speaker 16: designing and sewing looks for her a lot of the
Speaker 16: things that she needed for her Bravo life pretty much.
Speaker 1: Kohajhnson is a fashion designer and stylist who Jen hires
Speaker 1: to help her create the image you see on the
Speaker 1: Real Housewives. He had eyes and ears on everything Jen
Speaker 1: was up to. He's also one of the reasons she
Speaker 1: got caught.
Speaker 10: I remember one time Stuart screwed up on some kind
Speaker 10: of transaction or lost like about eight million, and Jen
Speaker 10: was very upset and she came down to the office
Speaker 10: late at night with Coach and they were both yelling
Speaker 10: and scream at I am asking him where their money is.
Speaker 1: What CoA Johnson is about to share has never been
Speaker 1: shared with anyone before, and it's insane.
Speaker 5: Would you call her a con artist?
Speaker 13: I would just call her a con She's not very
Speaker 13: much of an artist.
Speaker 1: Next time on Queen of the Con and.
Speaker 3: No, not yet, handle it.
Speaker 8: Very sorry.
Speaker 5: Who do you think recorded that video and released it?
Speaker 13: That's a good question. I know everybody wants to say
Speaker 13: it's me.
Speaker 1: There's something that me being an employee of Jenshaw is
Speaker 1: truly a terrifying experience.
Speaker 10: Going through abuse and being assaulted the entire time and
Speaker 10: berated the entire time.
Speaker 13: Her life was in shamles. She was in chaos constantly.
Speaker 10: It was a complete nightmare, and my colleagues had to
Speaker 10: go through it myself, a lot of the people around
Speaker 10: us had to suffer her wrath.
Speaker 5: Looking back, did Jenshaw scam you?
Speaker 13: Yes?
Speaker 12: She did.
Speaker 1: Portions of public statements from court records and from social
Speaker 1: media posts were dramatized verbatim in this episode. Queen of
Speaker 1: the Khan. The Unreal Housewife is a production of AYR
Speaker 1: Media and iHeartMedia, hosted by me Jonathan Walton, executive producers
Speaker 1: Jonathan Walton for Jonathan Walton Productions and Elisa Rosen for
Speaker 1: AYR Media. Written by Jonathan Walton, Segment producer Gregory Harvey,
Speaker 1: Senior Associate producer Jill Pshesnik, Coordinator Melana Krolyevsky. Sound designed
Speaker 1: by Tim Mulhern, Edited and mixed by Tim Mulhern. Supervising
Speaker 1: producer Victoria Chang, Audio engineer Justin Mongerbean studio engineer Maximo Abraham.
Speaker 1: Mastered by Victoria Chang. Legal council for AYR Media. Johnny Douglas,
Speaker 1: Executive producer for iHeartMedia. Maya Howard Voice acting by Courtney Hetrick,
Speaker 1: Milan Faxis, Melana Krolyevsky, Elissa Heimrich and Christine Goldstein. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying Queen of the Khan, click that share button
Speaker 1: and send it to your friends and family. Also, if
Speaker 1: you can leave us a five star review, reviews really
Speaker 1: help other listeners find US court records, police records, the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice, Homeland Security, victim interviews, interviews with investigators,
Speaker 1: ABC News, Time Magazine, US Weekly, TMZ, People, Access, Hollywood,
Speaker 1: and Bravos. Real Housewives of Salt Lake City were the
Speaker 1: sources used for this season of Queen of the Khan