"We Shared Poop Duty": Jen Shah Just Spilled On Her Prison Friendship With Elizabeth Holmes

Former Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah has opened up about her friendship with disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes . Turns out, few things bring people together quite like sharing bathroom duty in federal prison.

In an interview with People from April 2026, Shah, who was released from federal prison in December 2025 after serving nearly three of her six-and-a-half-year sentence for her involvement in a telemarketing fraud scheme, shared that she and Holmes became good friends while incarcerated at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas.

"Lizzie and I are good friends," Shah said, referring to Holmes. She explained that their shared experiences as high-profile inmates helped bring them together, as did their jobs in prison. Specifically, poop duty.

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"There are just certain things where you both are dealing with," Shah said, "and so you, um, naturally kind of come together in those in those instances."

"We both got assigned to poop duty together," Shah revealed, adding, "When you do poop duty with someone, like, you're gonna be close." The former RHSLC castmate says she and Holmes lived in the same housing unit for the final 10 months of her sentence and were assigned to the same bathroom.

If inmates failed to keep their assigned bathroom clean, they got a strike. After three strikes, according to Shah, "you have to do poop duty." She said that she'd almost made it through her entire sentence without having to perform poop duty, but "sure enough, we got hit. Our bathroom got hit."

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Shah says the assignment involved sitting in a metal chair inside the bathroom for an hour, watching people come and go, and inspecting the facilities after each person finished. If they weren't clean, the person on duty had to clean it themselves or ask the person who'd just used it to do so.

"You were literally sitting there in the bathroom, so if you can imagine, you know the smells, and everything going on for poop duty," Shah said. "And if you get more strikes, you keep doing hours of poop duty."

Fortunately, Shah and Holmes' friendship extended beyond poop duty. The former recalled how she and Holmes would take walks around the prison track in the evenings, discussing everything from their families to the books they read to prison reform. "There's not much you can do as an inmate," Shah told People , "but Lizzie and I felt like we could make a difference and advocate for the women.

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But as it turns out, their friendship isn't exactly new information. Back in September 2023, Shah's representative, Chris Giovanni, broke the news to People that the two were buddies and were supporting each other through their sentences. "They're friends. They're both rehabilitating and have bonded over being on this journey of positive change," BuzzFeed reported at the time. "Their situations brought them together, and they have a good understanding of one another. They're getting through it together."

He even described the former Housewife as having taken on a "motherly role" towards Holmes, who had welcomed her second child shortly before starting her prison sentence. According to Giovanni, Shah gave Holmes "a lot of advice," even meeting and holding her newborn.

He also announced that Shah had begun leading group fitness classes in prison under the name "Sha-mazing Abs," and Holmes participated. (Those who have watched Nathan Fielder's You Can See Everything will remember Billy Evans discussing how Holmes got "fit" in prison and "even has abs now!")

However, there's one subject on which the two women have different perspectives: their convictions. In her People interview , Shah revealed that Holmes continues to maintain her innocence despite her federal fraud convictions. She recalled asking Holmes why she "continued to fight" despite the emotional toll, to which Holmes allegedly replied, "My kids. I want them to know that I'm innocent."

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It's worth noting that Shah initially maintained her innocence after her March 2021 arrest, before pleading guilty in 2022. In post-prison interviews, she took responsibility for her actions and expressed remorse, saying : "There's no excuse for what I did, but there's an explanation around it. I'm deeply remorseful and sorry for my actions and for my part. I take full responsibility for the decisions I made."

"I was wrong. I made wrong decisions," Shah told People . "I should have done things differently. There were definitely red flags. The lines were blurred between my personal relationship and business, and so even though your gut is telling you, 'Something's not right.' I didn't act upon those feelings."

Jen Shah has yet to reveal if she has seen You Can See Everything .

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