Former Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah is sharing the good, bad and downright smelly parts of prison with Elizabeth Holmes.
“I did make some close friends there. Lizzie and I are good friends,” Shah, 52, shared with People in an interview published Wednesday, April 1. “When you come through as a high profile, there are just certain things that you are both dealing with naturally, and you naturally come together in those instances.”
Another element that brought the pair close together was the task of poop duty.
“We lived in the same unit for the last, maybe, 10 months or so when I was there. You are assigned to different bathrooms,” Shah explained. “We were assigned the same bathroom. If someone in your bathroom does not clean it or something like that, you get a strike. If your bathroom gets three strikes, you have to do poop duty.”
According to Shah, poop duty consisted of pulling a chair into a shared bathroom and watching “everyone come in and use the bathroom.” After each person went, those on duty had to “either clean it if they don’t clean it or let them know to come and clean it.”
“You’re literally sitting there in the bathroom,” Shah explained. “So you can imagine the smells and everything going on for poop duty.”
Shah was sentenced to prison for her role in a yearslong telemarketing scheme that the government said defrauded innocent people across the country. After serving less than three years at a federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, the former Bravo star was released in December 2025 and is now under home confinement.
In her first interview since being released, Shah took accountability for her actions and said she’s “deeply remorseful and sorry for my actions and for my part.”
Holmes, 42, remains behind bars as she serves just over 11 years for defrauding investors of her defunct health startup.
“We were both very busy during the day and in the evening, we’d go take a walk,” Shah recalled of her friendship with Holmes. “That’s when we’d have our time to just talk. Talk about how much we missed our family. Talk about important things that were going on in prison.”
As Shah looks towards the future with her husband, Sharrieff “Coach” Shah, and their two adult sons, she can’t help but feel grateful to have crossed paths with Holmes and formed a friendship.
“There’s a lot of heartache when you’re in prison,” Shah explained. “So just being that sounding board for each other where you can be like, ‘Hey, I just need to walk and cry’ and just having someone there who understood you.”
