Erika Girardi, aka Pretty Mess Erika Jayne, TV personality/pop singer and 32-years-younger soon-to-be ex-wife of high-powered (and legally embattled) Los Angeles attorney Tom Girardi, loved nothing more than to flaunt her wealth and extravagant lifestyle as a cast member on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” She swanned around her grandiose estate in Pasadena, flew around in private planes — the Girardis own not just one but two planes, and invited Bravo’s cameras into her gargantuan closets stuffed full of designer duds.
Rumors have swirled for years that the Girardis live beyond their means and, in the wake of their separation and pending divorce after 21 years of marriage, it’s become evident they are not likely quite as flush as they wish the public to believe. Of course, just because they may not be as deep in clover as their wildly profligate spending suggests — the heavily processed blond bombshell once claimed on “The Wendy Williams Show” that she shoveled out a heart-stopping $40,000 a month on clothes, hair, makeup and her omnipresent multi-person glam team — it does not, of course, mean they are penniless.
Whatever the specifics of their clearly quite complicated finances, the Girardis are headed for the court of divorce mired in scandals and lawsuits that allege Tom Girardi embezzled millions to finance their by-every-standard extravagantly expensive lifestyle. And now, ready to move on as a newly single woman without her octogenarian sugar daddy, Ms. Jayne has decamped her lavish Pasadena estate, as was first reported in the New York Post, for a comparatively humble (if not exactly inexpensive) bachelorette pad rental along a lovely tree-lined street on the edge of L.A.’s affluent Hancock Park neighborhood.
Tax records show the three-bedroom and 2.5-bath property last changed hands more than six years ago for a skosh over $1.5 million, and online records show it was last available for lease in late 2020 at a not-exactly-chump-change rate of $9,500 per month. At just over 2,000 square feet, the comprehensively updated 1920s Spanish bungalow is hardly miniscule. But, at just about one-fifth the size of her 10,000-plus-square foot palace in Pasadena, it is a remarkable and somewhat surprising downsize for Ms. Jayne.
A curlicued wrought iron gate adds a whiff of period pizazz to the bungalow’s private courtyard entry that is strewn overhead with strands of lights. Inside there are French oak floorboards, in-ceiling speakers and a snazzy array of aggressively contemporary light fixtures.
Anchored by a chunky stone fireplace, the living room features a barrel-vaulted ceiling and a bay window lined with floor-to-ceiling windows that fill the room with natural light, while the jewel-box powder room is emblazoned with chic banana-leaf wallpaper similar but not identical to that which is famously found throughout The Beverly Hills Hotel. And, though it’s tough to imagine the saucy and sassy diva spends too much time cooking, the eat-in kitchen is nicely equipped with marble counters and high-quality commercial-style stainless steel appliances.
Presumably one or both of the guest bedrooms have been pressed into use as a dressing room and/or glam room because as nice as the main bedroom is, with its vintage-inspired marble bath and French doors to the backyard, the walk-in closet is downright puny compared to what Jayne is accustomed and, frankly, hardly large enough to hold the always immaculately (and professionally) maquillaged fashion daredevil’s extensive collections of wigs and hair pieces, let alone her aircraft hanger-worth of clothes, shoes and handbags.
Enveloped in dense tropical plantings, the fairly petite backyard offers lush privacy with a quiet dining terrace and, though she doesn’t really seem the type to enjoy being wet for recreational purposes, a dark-bottom swimming pool. A detached garage alongside the pool has been converted to a Moroccan-inspired open-air cabana that just may wind up being prominently featured in the upcoming 11th season of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”