Shannon Storms Beador and Jennifer Pedranti came face-to-face with a carjacker on Season 19, Episode 12 of The Real Housewives of Orange County ..or so they thought. The frightening moment turned out to be an elaborate scheme cooked up by Gretchen Rossi to teach the ‘Wives “reality-based” self-defense training. Regardless, Shannon maintained it all felt very real on The Real Housewives of Orange County After Show—but Heather Dubrow didn’t buy it.
“I’m telling you, Heather, it was not okay. It was not fun,” Shannon declared as she spilled the behind-the-scenes details in the video above. She also pretended to shake while adding, “I was like this inside.”
But Heather responded, “I call bulls—t. You knew.”
Shannon walked Heather through what she was thinking as she and Jenn arrived at the class location.
“[The driver] said, ‘We’re gonna pull up to the door,’ and I said, ‘Why are the windows down? Can you put the windows up, please?’ And I go, ‘We can’t pull up with the windows down,’” Shannon, who was sitting by the open window, recalled on the After Show. “And then I thought, ‘Oh, we’re like at an industrial building, they’re not gonna film us getting out of the car. So I guess it’s fine. Leave the window open.’”
Then Shannon detailed to Heather how the man approached the car: “All of a sudden, he’s at my face. My heart was literally racing. I thought the blood was leaving my body.”
Although Heather dubiously replied, “Really?” Shannon continued her retelling.
“I was almost frozen, because I wanted to say to the driver, ‘Drive!’” Shannon explained. “But I thought, ‘He’s frozen in fear!’…I thought we were done.”
Heather admitted she didn’t know how she would have reacted in Shannon’s shoes, and told her, “Thank god it wasn’t me.”
But when Shannon declared, “I thought we were dead,” Heather sarcastically gestured toward Shannon and told After Show producers she was in fact “not dead.”
Why Jenn Pedranti was surprised by Shannon Storms Beador’s reaction to the “carjacking” prank
Shannon’s re-telling of the fake carjacking on the After Show didn’t quite match up to what was captured on cameras in the Sept. 25 episode.
Jenn was actually surprised at how “calm” Shannon stayed during the ordeal. Cameras captured self-defense trainer Josh, posing as a carjacker, approaching Jenn and Shannon in their SUV and commenting, “nice ride.” When Shannon told him she didn’t have any cash on her, he asked for their phones, and began to lean into the open car window.
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“What are you doing?” Shannon asked as she scooched away into Jenn’s seat and grabbed her purse.
When the man asked, “Are you prepared to die over that phone?” Shannon began laughing and asked, “Is this part of the show?”
It was a contrast to Jenn, who called him an “a—hole” jokingly, and added, “I think I s—t myself.”
Jenn was stunned by Shannon’s reaction. “All of a sudden, Shannon’s just calm, cool, collected. Where did this Shannon come from?” she asked in her confessional interview.
But Shannon justified her surprising demeanor by telling producers, “I was functioning frozen. Is that such a thing?” She added, “I thought, ‘Can I kick his face? Oh, he’ll probably pull my ankle and pull me out of the car.’”
Gretchen Rossi’s RHOC prank, explained
Gretchen explained earlier in the Sept. 25 episode why she wanted the other ‘Wives to attend the self-defense class. “I feel like we all need this, because we’ve all been around situations that can be sketch at times,” she told Heather and Emily Simpson.
But Gretchen also let Emily and Heather in on the “surprise” for the other ‘Wives.
“So Wes came up with the idea to do this like fake car-jacking,” she shared. “You never know when something like this is going to happen. And what is going to be your real and raw reaction? And that’s why it’s important to get trained on these things.”
Heather, Emily and Gretchen watched on monitors as Gina Kirschenheiter and Tamra Judge’s car rolled into the lot, and as a man approached their vehicle and asked for money. When he started gesturing through the open window, Tamra scrambled away into Gina’s seat.
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“Oh my god, drive the car! Please drive the car!” Gina yelled at their driver, but then the man revealed it was all a training simulation.
Gina was not amused, exclaiming, “That is not funny. That is not f—king funny. You are a scary gentleman…I am literally shaking.”
Tamra jokingly pointed out that in the moment, she shoved Gina out of the way to get away from the “carjacker.”
“I would have rather anyone else be in this vehicle with me other than Tamra. Like every Tamra for themselves!” Gina said in her confessional.
When Gina and Tamra joined the other ‘Wives, Gina repeatedly said, “I did not like that.” She also added, “I’m still shaking. That’s terrifying.”
Tamra sarcastically told Gretchen she “started getting chest pains.”
“Scaring Tamra might be a little bit of karma getting back at her for all the years of pain and crap that she’s done to me,” Gretchen joked in her confessional.
Don’t miss Gretchen responding to the speculation that Slade Smiley’s “debt” is contributing to their engaged status in an exclusive interview.
