Jen Shah Discusses Elizabeth Holmes and Ghislaine Maxwell

Former Real Housewife of Salt Lake City Jen Shah has no snowflake to hold, but she’s still got a fascinating group of friends. Shah, who was released from prison in December 2025, recently gave her first public interview to People. “I did make some close friends [in prison],” Shah says in the video interview out today. “Lizzy and I are good friends.” “Lizzy,” it turns out, is Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. The two were in the same unit for the last ten months of Shah’s stay, she revealed, and their connection was practical. “We both got assigned to poop duty together,” Shah says. “I feel like when you do poop duty with someone, you’re gonna be close.” Poop duty meant that the two women had to sit in the bathroom and watch other inmates poop, making sure they cleaned up and, if they didn’t, cleaning up after them themselves. “You’re literally sitting there in the bathroom,” Shah explains. “So you can imagine the smells.”

Reports of Holmes and Shah’s friendship had already been public, including the news that Holmes was attending Shah’s abs-workout class. “Jen gets all the ladies together and they rally behind her while she teaches them fitness moves, and Elizabeth has been there right along with them,” Shah’s rep Chris Giovanni said in 2023. “They’re getting through it together,” he added.

Shah explains in the interview that their closeness came from sharing celebrity status. “When you come through, I guess as a ‘high profile’ too, there are just certain things where you both are dealing with,” she says. “So you naturally come together in those instances.” Still, don’t think that Shah was equally close with all the infamous people in her prison. “I had limited interactions with [Ghislaine Maxwell],” she reveals. “Her experience is very different there, even from Elizabeth and I.” Shah said that “She made it very publicly known, at least to Elizabeth and I, that there’s no remorse there … when the victims would be on TV and talking, it was just complete disregard for them.” If there’s one thing Shah knows from Housewives, it’s how to bury something with words.