Erika Jayne

Erika Jayne
Erika Girardi (née Chahoy; born July 10, 1971), known professionally as Erika Jayne, is an American singer, television personality and actress.
Early life
Erika Girardi was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 10, 1971, to single mother Renee Chahoy. Her parents broke up before her first birthday. She graduated from North Atlanta High School. At 18, she moved to New York City.
Career
Acting and reality television
Her first two on-screen appearances were murder victim Suzanne Morton in the episode "Prescription for Death" and Pruiting's girlfriend in the episode "The Violence of Summer" in NBC's legal drama series Law & Order. She also had roles in independent films Alchemy (1995) and Lowball (1996).
In 2015, she joined the cast of Bravo's reality television show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for the show's sixth season.
In December 2016, she guest starred on The Young and the Restless with her former Real Housewives cast member Eileen Davidson, who plays Ashley Abbott on the show.
In 2019, she was cast as Roxie Hart in a broadway production of Chicago. Due to COVID-19, production was shut down after only two months of shows.
Music
According to her autobiography Pretty Mess, music producer Peter Rafelson came up with the idea of changing her name to "Erika Jayne". Jayne's first single, "Roller Coaster" was released on January 1, 2007. The song placed at number one on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. Jayne's debut album Pretty Mess, was released in the United States on August 11, 2009. She released several standalone singles from 2010 to 2018, including number one singles "Painkillr" and "How Many Fucks."
Throughout her music career, Jayne has performed at several gay nightclubs and LGBT pride events, including LA Pride. In 2018, she embarked on her first headlining concert tour, Erika Jayne Presents: The Pretty Mess Tour, visiting 13 cities across the United States. In April 2023, she announced Bet It All on Blonde, a Las Vegas concert residency at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay.
Personal life and legal issues
While living in New York, she met Thomas Zizzo, who was working as a DJ at a club in Manhattan. The couple married in December 1991 at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Soon thereafter she gave birth to a son, Thomas Zizzo Jr. After the couple divorced in 1996, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of becoming a singer.
In January 2000, she married Thomas Girardi, an attorney in Downtown Los Angeles whom she met in 1998. In November 2020, she announced her separation from Girardi and filed for divorce. One month after the divorce announcement, the couple were named in a lawsuit for allegedly embezzling funds meant for families of the victims of the fatal 2018 Lion Air plane crash. Media outlets reported that the divorce could be a "sham" to hide assets. In December 2020, a Chicago-based law firm asked a federal judge to order Jayne to stop selling designer clothing online amid an effort to recover $2 million in missing money owed to people.
On December 17, 2020, a Los Angeles Times article alleged that Girardi "stole millions of dollars from vulnerable clients," and improperly funneled more than $20 million of victims' compensation to EJ Global, a company set up to finance Jayne’s entertainment and singing career. A documentary about the couple's highly publicized legal troubles titled The Housewife and the Hustler was released on Hulu on June 14, 2021. On August 31, 2022, she scored a legal win in a $5 million dollar fraud lawsuit, whereby the judge ruled the plaintiffs could not prove she had knowledge or involvement in the alleged fraud.
Discography
References
External links
1971 births
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Atlanta
American dance musicians
American film actresses
American television actresses
American women pop singers
Living people
Singers from Atlanta
Television personalities from Atlanta