Jen Shah dropped some surprising bombshells about her marriage, life behind bars and more in her first interview since being released from prison.
“I was wrong,” Shah, 52, told People on Wednesday, April 1, about what led to her 33-month prison sentence. “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.”
The former Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star reflected on her legal issues, adding, “It’s a long and a very complex journey that brought me to this point. And without relitigating it, I became involved in the case because I made horrible business decisions and I disregarded huge red flags. I allowed the lines to be blurred between personal friendships and ethical business practices. And in essence, I trusted the wrong people at a very vulnerable time in my life.”
Shah said she “thought I was doing the right thing for the majority of the time” while working in direct response marketing.
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“I was working under people who were running these companies. … What happened was down the line, people that I worked with were working with a lot of other people,” she claimed. “Once that initial fulfillment was happening, things were happening beyond the point of sale with that customer that I didn’t know about.”
She continued: “It can happen if you’re not careful, if you’re not being diligent and you’re not paying attention to the red flags. But you have a responsibility once you’re in that position to make sure it doesn’t.”
Shah went on to describe the “vulnerable” time in her life during which she “trusted the wrong people.”
“What’s important for me to say — and I need to let people know — was at the same time, my involvement in this conspiracy overlapped with my own personal pain,” Shah shared. “My husband [Sharrieff ‘Coach’ Shah] and I were separated. We were on the verge of a divorce. I was overwhelmed with immense grief from the death of my grandmother, my father and my aunt, all in a very short period of time. I was spiraling deeper into my previously diagnosed clinical depression.”
She added: “And the reason I say all that is not as an excuse. Because it’s not like I was making good business decisions and then I woke up one morning and all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Oh, I made a bad business decision.’ This is the totality of everything that was going on and the overlapping of what I was dealing with personally. And I tried to avoid and numb all of that with alcohol and just avoid it.”
Shah has been keeping a low profile since her release from Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, on December 10, 2025. At the time, a Bureau of Prisons spokesperson confirmed that she was transferred from the Federal Prison Camp to complete the remaining portion of her sentence under supervision. It was unclear whether she was sent home or to a halfway house.
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Upon her release, Judge Sidney Stein also ordered Shah to serve five years of supervised release “to make sure you don’t end up committing another crime.”
Shah had been in custody since February 17, 2023, for her role in a long-running nationwide telemarketing fraud scheme.
Shah told People why she ultimately accepted wrongdoing and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in July 2022 after previously entering a not guilty plea.
“There were actual victims as a result of this conspiracy. I had never seen anything with my own eyes. That changed things for me,” she added. “I’m sorry. I’m accepting responsibility, and I’ve made it my mission to make sure that people are paid back.”
She was arrested in March 2021 and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with telemarketing and conspiracy to commit money laundering. As part of her plea deal, the U.S. Attorney’s office agreed to drop the second charge against her.
Shah and her first assistant, Stuart Smith, both landed in hot water for their roles in a telemarketing scheme that defrauded hundreds of victims, many of whom were 55 or older. (As part of her plea deal, she agreed to pay victims up to $9.5 million in restitution.)
While reflecting on her time behind bars, Shah told People, “When I walked in, it took my breath away. You hear people say it’s ‘Camp Cupcake’ — it’s not. It’s prison. I just thought, ‘This cannot be where I’m going to be every day.’”
She concluded: “I understand that people have their opinions based on what they saw. But I would hope they would give me the grace to at least hear me and understand that I’m more than just the headline.”
