Well, well, well. Upon researching some Erika Jayne videos the other day, I stumbled upon an old clip from Jan. 2018 that perked up my ears. It involved Erika talking about a car accident Tom was involved in in which he broke his ankle. Tom? A car accident? A broken ankle? I thought. That sounds familiar.

Indeed, it seems that this clip unearthed via the Bravo YouTube page details the original telling of the car accident Tom was involved in three years ago. The one that Erika retold to the women while on a weekend trip in La Quinta. To remind you, this is what she shared with the women:

• She started seeing signs of Tom's deteriorating mental capacity about three years ago after Tom had a car accident
• "As a result of the crash his ankle was broken"
• He was "unconscious for 12 hours"
• Erika was the one who found him
• "He had a head injury and he broke his shoulder, snapped his ankle, and then broke his clavicle"
• "He drove off a cliff"
• "He wasn't with the car, he was down the hill"
• "He tumbled out of the car"

Now... let's travel back in time and see how Erika detailed the crash the first time around to her creative director, Mikey, in Season 8 of RHOBH.

• "Mr. Girardi had an accident and broke his ankle... a car accident"
• "He's fine"
• Erika and her team were in Tokyo and she got the call right after they got home
• He was close to home when it happened
• "... It could have been so much worse"
• "People have had much worse accidents"
• "It's the first time I've seen Tom not superhuman and that kinda sucks"
• "Tom's in a lot of pain and this is a man that doesn't like to acknowledge that kind of stuff"
• Erika saw a "flash of fear"
• "So I have been dealing with that and that is a lot"

Interesting. Very interesting.

The most notable difference is that Erika told the ladies in La Quinta that she found Tom (even though in a later episode she said Tom was "allegedly" unconscious, but she should know this since she "found him") and back in 2018 she said that she received a call about the accident. You don't need to be a detective to know that these are very different statements. Also in 2018, all she mentioned was the broken ankle and was pretty elusive with the rest of the details. In 2021 however, there were far more injuries involved.

That said, the severity of the accident did seem to be weighing on her in the 2018 video, which may mean that she just wasn't telling Mikey (and the audience) the full story, whether it was for privacy reasons (why tell it to begin with, then?) or to protect Tom. Then again, maybe this was an entirely different accident... in which Tom was involved... and broke his ankle...

And before we depart, I just need to talk about this quote from the 2018 video:

"For the first time I had to check myself and I thought, "Mmm one day you're gonna be here alone." Can you take care of this place? Are you gonna be able to stand on your own two feet? Is you life gonna change? This could be taken away at any second and things could change at a moment."

Little did she know what was to transpire just a couple years later. Honestly, this video brings more questions than answers. Luckily we have the four part reunion to get those answers.

Image: Bravo