Lara Sophia 
RHOSLC newbie Monica Garcia continues to blaze a trail on the franchise, all while spilling the juicy scoop on Jen Shah!
Monica Garcia has given fans scandal, gossip, and tears since being introduced at the start of season 4.
During episode one, the RHOSLC newbie revealed she turned state witness against her former boss and friend, Jen Shah.
Since then, Monica dished on being ex-communicated from the Mormon Church after banging her brother-in-law for 18 months.
She’s also shed tears over the need to “fit in” and keep up with the ladies of RHOSLC amid their bevy of designer bags and $60k rings.
Monica, who is in the middle of an ongoing divorce, admitted that she felt so out of place among the RHOSLC cast that she purchased a Louis Vuitton bag just to feel a part of the group.
Now, Monica is opening up about her attempts to keep up with the Joneses while also revealing why she chose not to go the fake designer purse route to save a buck or two when joining RHOSLC.
“Everyone’s like, ‘She’s making it seem like she’s poor!’ All I was saying was I felt pressure for the first time in my life to have nice things in order to fit in with the group,” Monica told The Messenger. “It wasn’t about being poor; it was more so about the pressure that women can feel in order to fit in with a new group of other women.”
While some RHOSLC fans claimed that Monica’s Louis Vuitton bag was a fake, Monica insists it’s real. She then reveals that she does own a fake Louis Vuitton bag, which she received from Jen Shah, who gave her the bag just two months before her arrest in March of 2021.
“The only fake Louis I have ever owned was the one Jen Shah gave me,” she said. “Let me just go out here and say that my Louis was purchased brand new from a store. I have the receipts. Take that and check it. [The] only fake thing I’ve ever been given was from Jen Shah.”
She then jokes that she will be bringing the fake bag to the RHOSLC season 4 reunion.
“I’m going to bring it to the reunion,” Monica revealed. “The Louis is going to have its own seat right next to me at the reunion.”
Meanwhile, Monica expanded on her connection to Jen Shah and the role she played in putting the former RHOSLC star in prison.
During the RHOSLC season 4 premiere, Monica revealed that she briefly worked for Jen Shah, who is now serving a 6.5-year prison sentence.
“So, Jen had fired her assistant, and I stepped in to help her, and one night, Jen asked me, ‘Do you want to be rich? Do you want to make $600,000 a year? All you have to do is put this, this, and this in your name,'” Monica explained during the season 4 premiere. “I remember being so weirded out, like what? It was very bizarre. And I have a friend in the Secret Service, and I called him, and he said, ‘Get the f— away from Jen Shah — she’s going to prison.’ And she was arrested two months later. And that was how I became a witness with the federal government in her trial.”
“Okay, so I did not work for Jen,” she clarified. “I’m pretty sure you have to be on a payroll and, I don’t know, make money from someone in order to be considered working for them.”
Monica also insists that she’s not a “rat” as she was neither a key witness nor an informant in the case against Jen.
“I wasn’t a rat because I was subpoenaed as a witness in a federal trial,” she explained. “I’m a mother of four young daughters, and if I’m subpoenaed, I’m not going to prison for anybody at all. I was forced to be a witness…and I never ended up testifying because there was no trial.”
According to the RHOSLC newbie, she was “flown back and forth between Utah and New York” to talk with federal prosecutors.
“This was real, at the end of the day. I know people give reality TV a lot of like, ‘Is this scripted? Is this even real?’ But Jen’s situation was one hundred percent real,” she shared. “I also am not going to sit here and dismiss the fact that she was my friend, and I did care about her greatly. I think anyone can say that she can be an amazing friend. She can be so fun…It’s not like it was all bad, but unfortunately, I was around for some things that the government was like, ‘We may need you to testify.’ I don’t know if people really understand. You don’t get to say no when you’re subpoenaed.”
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City season 4 airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.
