Lisa Barlow doesn’t know if it’s “a good thing” for Jen Shah to appear on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City following her prison release.
“I want her to be happy. I want her to be thriving. I want her to be with her children and her husband and her mother and everybody else,” Lisa, 51, said during the Thursday, July 2, episode of the “Therapuss” podcast. “I think that’s important. I think she’s really sorry. She did restitution and she’s paying for her mistake.”
Lisa told podcast host Jake Shane that she hasn’t seen Jen, 52, following her December 2025 prison release.
“I think she talks to Meredith [Marks] every now and then,” Lisa said. “She’ll call Meredith randomly, or Meredith will check in with her. But I don’t think anyone has a deep friendship with her.”
Jen was arrested in March 2021 for her part in a nationwide telemarketing fraud scheme, initially pleading not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with telemarketing and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
More than one year later, Shah pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud as part of a plea deal which dropped the conspiracy to commit money laundering charge.
Jen spoke out in her first interview following her prison release earlier this year.
“I was wrong,” she told People in April. “I made wrong decisions. I should have done things differently. I should have been more diligent. And I’m deeply remorseful and sorry for my actions and for my part. I take full responsibility.”
Jen’s arrest was filmed and later aired as part of RHOSLC season 2.
“It was wild,” Lisa recalled during Thursday’s podcast episode. “I remember sitting in the van … Her energy was really off. And then when she got that phone call and was like, ‘I have to leave’, we’re like, ‘OK, what’s going on?’ Nobody would have ever in a million years felt like Homeland Security, the FBI, NYPD was going to show up.”
Despite what went down with the prison of it all, Lisa still had nice things to say about her former friendship with Jen.
“I think that Jen has a lot of charisma and she’s really funny. And when you get her on a great day, she’s the most fun person ever,” she said. “She’s crazy, but she’s so funny. She has this charisma about her and it’s really natural.”
