Scheana Shay gave an excerpt of her memoir, My Good Side, to Entertainment Weekly about her affair with Eddie Cibrian when he was still married to former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Brandi Glanville.
Without further ado, an excerpt from My Good Side, which was edited for length.
Scheana and Eddie’s origin story:
The actor met his former paramour at a cigar lounge where Scheana worked, and he played poker weekly.
The OG of Vanderpump Rules wrote, “Of course, I’ve been asked a zillion times how I didn’t realize he was married. Why would I have thought he was?”
“He never wore a wedding ring, so I assumed he was single. This was pre–social media, so it wasn’t like he was posting pics of his family in matching pajamas in front of a Christmas tree.”
“To be clear, Eddie wasn’t my boyfriend (at least not exclusively). But we did start a physical relationship at the end of 2006, which was a weekly booty call. Eddie would go home, and I’d go back to my life for the rest of the week. In hindsight, it was pretty brazen of him to be fully out in public with a bunch of single women while his wife and child were at home.”
“Eddie came to help me and met most of my friends and even my mother. His best friend also joined us with his son, who was a toddler at the time. We were literally intertwining our families and the people closest to us.”
“During this period, Eddie would take me out on his boat, and we’d cruise around Castaic Lake taking photos together. It really felt like we were building something. Did I think it was weird that I never went to his house? No! He lived in Calabasas, supposedly. And I certainly wasn’t making the trek to Calabasas in 2007, when Ubers didn’t exist, and I had less than $1,000 to my name. It was so much easier and more fun to hang out in Beverly Hills or Hollywood, and my place was closer and more convenient.”
“I didn’t see a single red flag, especially since we weren’t exclusive.”
Scheana started to see the signs:
“The first crack in Eddie’s perfectly constructed façade appeared one night at the cigar lounge, when one of the members approached me. He said, ‘Listen, Eddie is coming in tonight. And I just want to let you know—before you do something you might regret—that I heard he’s married.’ He must have seen that we were getting more serious and didn’t want me to get in too deep.”
“I didn’t believe it (or maybe I didn’t want to believe it) because I was wild about Eddie. And, again, we were out together all the time in public, so I didn’t feel like some secret mistress!”
“Still, I was freaking out and had a massive pit in my stomach. As predicted, Eddie showed up and, immediately, he could tell that my energy was off. He asked me what was going on, and I told him to check his phone. I’d sent him a message saying, ‘I have to ask, before we hang out tonight, does something belong on your ring finger?’ I didn’t want to come across as aggressive or have him think I was acting crazy, since I didn’t know if it was true, and also because my inherent people-pleasing tendencies were in full force.”
Scheana was gaslighted by Eddie:
“So, I decided to choose pleasant and palatable, even a little playful, over direct and confrontational. I was young, and I felt like I was falling in love with him. I didn’t want to rock the boat for no reason. Writing, ‘Are you married?’ felt too accusatory, even though I now know that it would have been completely appropriate given the circumstances.”
“Eddie acted like he didn’t understand exactly what I was getting at, so I posed the question straightforwardly. And his answer was ‘No, that’s insane. Why would you ask me that?’ It was gaslighting in its most basic form. Yet, I trusted him, so we continued hanging out …”
My Good Side drops July 22nd.
