RHOBH Star Erika Girardi Says She Spends $40,000 a Month on Hair, Makeup and Clothes

Colleen Kratofil
Updated

Erika Jayne has sung for years that it’s “XXpen$ive to be me,” and she wasn’t kidding!

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Girardi travels with her own glam squad, has three walk-in closets in her Beverly Hills mansion and moonlights as her pop star alter ego, Erika Jayne. And it turns out living a life as fabulously fashionable as Erika’s will only set you back a mere $40,000 — a month.

During a stop on The Wendy Williams Show on Tuesday, the reality show star confirmed the rumor that it takes $40,000 — a month! — to be like her. “That is true. You know, it can get there for sure.”

So how does one rack up a bill as expensive as college tuition in just 30 days? “If you want to look good it’s hair, it’s makeup, it’s wardrobe, and then those people that help facilitate that. They’re not cheap,” Girardi said.

As we found out in the PEOPLE exclusive closet tour, her wardrobe is made up of almost entirely high-fashion brands (her shoe section alone has more pairs of Christian Louboutin pumps than a department store).

But for as over-the-top as she lives now, she was just a “middle class kid from Atlanta” growing up, she told Williams.

While promoting her new book, Pretty Mess, she opened up to PEOPLE about her past before finding fame on The Real Housewives. “I’ve worked very hard for everything I’ve ever had,” she told PEOPLE exclusively. “But it’s my journey. And I don’t regret anything.”

She worked as a Go-Go dancer while living in N.Y.C. at 18 years old, then moved to California to pursue her dream of being a performer when she met her husband, lawyer Tom Girardi.

“I was living Tom’s life,” Girardi said after they got married. “There are only so many material things you can have before it becomes boring. There are only so many dinners, so many things you can buy. I was complacent. I was in a wealthy coma and I wasn’t looking inward.”

What she decided to do was start up her performing career again — at age 35 — as Erika Jayne. “I had to be brave enough to say, ‘I’m not fulfilled.’ People told me I was insane. Erika Jayne was born out of rebellion. I like to break the rules.”