Erika Jayne

Erika Girardi (née Chahoy; born July 10, 1971), known professionally as Erika Jayne, is an American singer, television personality and actress.

Erika Girardi was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 10, 1971, to single mother Renee Chahoy.

Her father left when Erika was 9 months old.

She graduated from North Atlanta High School.

At 18, she moved to New York City.

Her first two on-screen appearances were (uncredited) murder victim Suzanne Morton in the episode "Prescription for Death" and Tim Pruiting's (uncredited) girlfriend in the "The Violence of Summer" in the first season of NBC's legal drama series Law & Order.

The couple married in December 1991 at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Soon thereafter she gave birth to a son, Thomas Zizzo Jr. He is a police officer in Los Angeles.

She also had roles in independent films Alchemy (1995) and Lowball (1996).

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.

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 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 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 to run select weekends from August to December 2023.

While living in New York, she met Thomas Zizzo, who was working as a DJ at a club in Manhattan.

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 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.

In 2024, Bravo will air a two-part documentary, Erika Jayne: Bet It All on Blonde, focusing on her residency at the House of Blues Music Hall in the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

According to her autobiography, Pretty Mess, music producer Peter Rafelson came up with the idea of changing her name to "Erika Jayne."

In November 2020, she announced her separation from Girardi and filed for divorce.

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 Tom 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.

A sequel The Housewife and the Hustler 2: The Reckoning continuing to examine the legal troubles, featured Jayne meeting with victims of Girardi's, which was released in February 2024.

On August 31, 2022, a judge ruled in a $5 million dollar civil fraud lawsuit that the plaintiffs could not prove Jayne had knowledge or involvement in the alleged fraud.