‘The Housewife and the Hustler’ review: More primer than analysis, the documentary examines the legal and financial problems of Erika and Tom Girardi

A few years ago, an editor at the paper asked us to write about our guilty pleasures, and I focused on Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchise, a constellation of shows I think of as Sandbox Tantrums of the Damned. Why do I bother with these pretend-subversive portraits of 1-percenters thirsting for celebrity and forever trying (and failing) to outrun their anxieties about aging and status?

The reasons I’m drawn to Bravo’s reality programming baffle even me. “But I feel neither guilt nor pleasure,” I wrote at the time. “It is something weirder. What do they call people who look at photos of death? That’s what this feels like.” That’s not hyperbole. “The Real Housewives” might be the most cynical TV endeavor of the 21st century, filled to its Botoxed gills with aspirational bunkum and faux exposé theatrics. The metaphors spill out of these shows like a bad odor, and I suppose my response is akin to a person holding a container of spoiled milk and asking anyone within a five-foot vicinity: Does this smell bad to you too?

Sometimes the displays of wealth are phony. On “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” the cameras caught an eviction notice being served on the home rented by Lynne Curtin and her husband. Sonja Morgan of “The Real Housewives of New York” went through bankruptcy.

Sometimes the money is obtained through illegal means. Teresa and Joe Giudice of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” pleaded guilty to several counts of financial fraud and served prison time as a result. Earlier this year, “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star Jen Shah was arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.

The facade is always threatening to crumble. Which brings us to “The Housewife and the Hustler,” an ABC News documentary that premiered earlier this week on Hulu about the substantial legal and financial problems of Erika Girardi, a cast member on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” since 2015, and her husband Tom Girardi, a prominent Los Angeles trial attorney who is alleged to have embezzled millions in settlement funds from his clients.

The L.A. Times has done excellent reporting on his downfall, noting that he managed to keep “his law license pristine despite numerous complaints against him at the State Bar as well as more than 100 lawsuits against him and his firm, many of them alleging misappropriation of funds.” Only in the past year has his professional life collapsed entirely. Just last week, the State Bar of California acknowledged its investigators mishandled complaints that were filed against him over the years.

The documentary includes footage from a September deposition and he says at one point he had as much as $80 million or $50 million in cash. “That’s all gone.” Also gone, his stock portfolio worth $50 million.

Where did it all go? That’s what the courts are currently trying to figure out. “That admission that he is broke — he has no money — opens up the door to Erika’s finances,” says ABC legal correspondent Sunny Hostin.

Former clients interviewed here include Joe Ruigomez, who survived a horrific gas line explosion at his home that left him with burns on 80% to 90% of his body, and Bias Ramadhan, whose mother was one of the 189 people killed in the 2018 Lion Air crash in Indonesia. There’s a Chicago connection as well: Many of the allegations against Tom became widely known when Chicago attorney Jay Edelson filed a lawsuit in December relating to missing settlement funds in the Lion Air case. Additionally, Tom’s former partners are suing him for lost earnings, and he is also being sued by Wells Fargo.

Meanwhile, for the last six years Erika has been flaunting her excesses on “The Real Housewives” with a particular zeal. Her husband initially financed her dreams of becoming a singer (she performs under the catsuit-bedazzled stage name of Erika Jayne), and she was among the first cast members to really treat every appearance in front of the camera as an opportunity to play extravagant dress-up. That kind of performance requires a small army of stylists — her “glam squad” — at the cost of $40,000 a month. We know that number because she disclosed it on the show, as well other luxuries at her disposal, including the couple’s two private planes. “It’s expensive to be me-ay-ay” she sings in her pop single “XXPEN$IVE.”

It’s worth noting these most recent allegations aren’t the first time Erika has been linked to her husband’s problems. Three years ago, the legal news website Law.com ran a story with the headline: “Lender claims Tom Girardi and Wife, ‘Real Housewives’ Star Erika Jayne, Used Law Firm Loan to Fund ‘High-End Lifestyle.’” Watching the show, you would never have an inkling about the details behind that report.

Erika turns 50 next month. Tom is 82. She filed for divorce in November, and according to the L.A. Times: “Bankruptcy trustees have accused her of concealing assets for him and are in the process of dispatching teams of investigators to comb through her belongings and accounts for money and property that should go to those who can show they were fleeced by her husband.”

All this is playing out right now on the 11th season of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” which is surreal. Her continuing participation defies all logic.

To be more precise, episodes are taped several months in advance — that’s as close to “right now” as the show is going to get — and last week we saw her text the news of her divorce filing to her cast mates. Bravo apparently sees all of this as simply more grist for the mill. A cast member’s husband is accused of stealing from orphans and widows to finance their lifestyle? Just another storyline, so keep the cameras rolling and pretend there is no such thing as a bridge too far. (The documentary notes that Bravo did not respond to requests for comment.) As Hostin puts it: “I just can’t imagine being a victim and watching any episode of ‘The Real Housewives’ and watching Erika Jayne go through her extensive shoe collection, her closet, her home, her private plane, going on trips and flaunting all of this wealth without wondering where it came from.”

More primer than analysis, the strengths of “The Housewife and the Hustler” lie in its interviews with Tom’s former clients. “It’s very disappointing when your lawyer basically robbed you, knowing that he knows everything that I went through,” says explosion survivor Ruigomez. “We are the victims here,” says Ramadhan, who lost his mother. “It’s only me and three of my siblings … we just want to know, can we get our money? And when will we get it?”

Kim Archie worked as a legal consultant at Tom’s firm and she sums up just how difficult it was to hold him accountable: “Who are we gonna call? We can’t call the D.A.; that’s Tom’s friends. We can’t go to the chief of police; that’s Tom’s friend. You can’t go to the California Attorney General; that’s Tom’s friend. You can’t go to the California Bar; that’s Tom’s friends. Like, who were we gonna call?”

What’s missing from the documentary is the kind media criticism that could put “The Real Housewives” franchise into some kind of larger context. We watch these shows as if sucking on a pop culture sourball, transfixed by this uncanny valley of dysfunction. The schadenfreude is deep. But there’s more if you look closer.

There was a distinct poise that kicked in whenever Erika filmed with her husband, suggesting there was a clear understanding of how she was expected to comport herself around him when cameras were present. If you were inclined to wonder if the couple’s relationship had transactional elements to it, these moments would seem to support that. It was always notable to me that Erika expected her cast mates to rein in their more aggressively loud tendencies around Tom as well, meaning: No antics allowed, at least not in his presence. There was an image to uphold. But the Girardis, as a couple, were giving competing performances — her over-the-top excess; his professional obligations to his clients — that would finally collide in a gust of wind collapsing this house of cards.

Ultimately, I suspect all of these shows are less about how we see these women and more about how they see themselves. If only Hulu were interested in producing a scholarly dissection of the smirking, middle-aged misogyny that is Bravo’s ringmaster Andy Cohen, who on his nightly talk show, “Watch What Happens Live,” grins merrily as he strings up these women like willing TV piñatas they have become.

Cohen and Bravo are laughing all the way to the bank and we, the viewers — myself included — are giving them a free ride there.

Where to watch: Hulu

nmetz@chicagotribune.com

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