Gina Kirschenheiter addressed Shannon Beador‘s recent DUI arrest on the latest episode of her podcast.
After Shannon, 59, criticized her for her own DUI arrest years ago throughout the 17th season of The Real Housewives of Orange County, suggesting CPS could’ve taken her children, Gina, 39, weighed in on the matter on her show, confirming that despite the irony, she’s not going to kick her castmate while she’s down.
“The irony of it is major, but honestly … I just don’t have it in me. I’m not going to kick someone when they’re down. I’ve been down. And I know where she’s at right now,” Gina explained on the September 27 episode of Orange Country. “It’s not a good place to be, mentally, emotionally … You do have this platform and this celebrity, and you make a really bad decision, and you think, ‘Well, that’s it for me.’”
According to Gina, her “first instinct” was gratitude that Shannon “didn’t hurt herself seriously or injure anyone else.”
“I’m just glad everybody’s okay. But, like, it sucks. It’s hard and I feel bad. I feel bad for her,” she admitted.
That said, Gina said she’d be lying if she didn’t have a moment of thinking, “Oh sh*t, this is like a karma,” and being “angry about a lot of it.” However, immediately after having that thought, she began to feel empathy.
“I really now have settled into appropriate sympathy for the situation, and for her. I don’t want to see anybody down,” she explained.
After then confessing to feeling as if Shannon “weaponized” the help she gave her after her own DUI four years ago, she said it would be “extremely hypocritical” for her to throw Shannon’s arrest in her face.
“We’re human beings. Shannon Beador is a human being and she’s struggling,” Gina stated. “Her putting all that on me the last couple of years and stuff, I truly see now, especially in this moment, that that was all a product of her struggle and her hurt. And it is hard to when you’re struggling to watch someone coming out of their struggle.”
As fans await next week’s start of the RHOC reunion, Gina hinted that comments Shannon made while filming the special may not have aged very well.
“The reunion’s not gonna be good for her, I’ll be honest, because where we were at, you see it play out on the show, she wasn’t even wanting to take a look at the fact that she was being unkind to me and she just basically doubled down at the reunion,” Gina shared. “It’s not gonna be great for her and I know that. I’ve said everything I’ve had to say and I won. I won. So it’s like, what do you do when you win? What do you teach your kids? When you win, do you dance around on somebody’s else’s grave? Do you celebrate? Do you gloat?”
“This doesn’t feel good,” Gina added of her “win.”
Continuing on, Gina expressed concern for Shannon’s daughters and how they’re taking the news.
“That was my biggest hurt in everything that was going on between Shannon and I. It sucks that your kids have to wear that. And I felt like she kept bringing it up and it was gonna cause my kids to have to wear something that could’ve been a lesson for them if we just let it go and moved on, and now I feel for her kids because that’s their mom and they’re gonna have to walk through this.”
While Gina and Shannon haven’t spoken face to face since her DUI arrest, Gina did receive a text message from her castmate.
“It was a sterile, generic text, just asking me not to respond that first day to the media — I had a lot of media reach out to me — or put anything on your social,” Gina revealed. “She’s obviously scared. It was just to me but then I did talk to my other castmates and she did send that basic text to all of us and I get that. I understand that. And I responded back and I said, ‘Shannon, I will not be commenting and I hope you’re doing okay.’ And she said, ‘Thank you,’ with a heart and I ‘hearted it.’”
All in all, Gina said that when it comes to her future relationship with Shannon, she hopes to help her get out of the “rock bottom” she’s currently in.
“When you’re that out of control or you’re spiraling and you’re that down and you’re pushing people away and you’re losing friends because of your behavior, you need someone, and sometimes maybe it is an unexpected person to reach in and pull you up, and so I feel this obligation … to reach down and to like pull her up a bit and say, ‘You know what Shannon, I’ve got you.’ And I can do that and so I will do that,” she declared.
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 17 reunion begins airing next Wednesday, October 4, at 8/7c on Bravo.