Credit: Bravo
Jeff Lewis offered an update on Shannon Beador following the Real Housewives of Orange County star’s DUI and hit-and-run arrest last weekend on Friday’s episode of his radio show.
As the Flipping Out alum, 53, welcomed Shannon’s castmate, Taylor Armstrong, 52, to the series, he confirmed Shannon, 59, is entering “intensive therapy” while also suggesting the lifestyle of her ex-boyfriend, John Janssen, has fueled her drinking habits.
“I talk to her pretty much every day to check on her,” Jeff revealed on the September 22 episode of SiriusXM’s Jeff Lewis Live.
After Shannon was arrested last Saturday, Jeff confirmed she sustained injuries when she crashed into a home in Newport Beach but denied she’s an alcoholic.
“Sometimes taking all those Ubers and everything, it gets very, very expensive. I don’t think it was about money … I don’t think she thought things through and I really don’t, I do know. I do know all the details, but I’m gonna keep those private,” he explained on Friday’s show.
While Shannon has been doing her best to stay hidden as she recovers from her arrest, she and John have been photographed several times, which Jeff blames on the lack of security in Shannon’s new neighborhood.
“She is in a temporary location, cute little condo right on the water, but there’s zero privacy. Zero, and there’s paparazzi all over her right now. She can’t even walk Archie,” Jeff noted, signaling to the golden retriever who was in the car at the time of Shannon’s DUI wreck.
According to Jeff, Shannon was forced to move because the Home Owners Association at her previous residence banned filming the area.
“I told her, ‘You know, you really should go stay with friends for the next few weeks,’ and I think she’s doing that now. I don’t think she’s at the apartment anymore,” Jeff revealed. “I think she was talking about going to [Vicki Gunvalson]’s, which I think is good because she’s behind the gates there, so she’ll have some privacy, but I said to her, ‘If you feel like you’re maybe overstaying your welcome, come up and stay at my house for a few nights, then you can go,’ you know, there’s a lot of us that are willing to take her in while she heals.”
As Shannon settles in to wherever she ends up, Jeff says he’s “just trying to be the best friend that I can be to her” as she “heals physically [and] emotionally.”
“I’m really proud of her because she is going into pretty intensive therapy and I think it’s starting next week, but it’s pretty intense,” he admitted. “She’s looking into like these really intensive courses, which I think I’m happy about.”
Doubling down, Jeff again said that he does not believe Shannon is an alcoholic.” Instead, he believes she has “people pleasing” issues — and that she may not be surrounding herself with the best people.
“John’s semi-retired, so he can stay up till midnight, two o’clock in the morning every night if he wants and I think she kind of goes along with it when, you know, maybe she wants to go home at [10] and stop at one drink. She feels like she has fun with John. She loves John. He wants to go out to another place, or he wants to do karaoke and she goes along with it, but then I think she regrets it the next day,” Jeff suspected.
As Shannon prepares to get help, Jeff hopes she’ll “ease into it.”
“All day, every day, five days a week is a lot… I said, ‘Why don’t you start off like 1 or 2 days?’ because it’s intensive,” he revealed. “[But] she’s so committed to it, which I’m very, very proud of her.”
In closing, Jeff pointed out “this could happen to anybody really.”
“She made one mistake and as far as I know, this is the only time that I know of her ever doing this. And it’s unfortunate how it all, how it all transpired,” he added.
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 17 finale airs next Wednesday, September 27, at 8/7c on Bravo.