In the special episode of “Real Housewives of Potomac,” Andy Cohen sits down with Karen Huger to discuss her time in prison. Here are the highlights for “Karen Comes Home.”
Karen is back home.
The special episode begins with Karen being released from prison. When she gets home, she’s touched to see that Ray had welcome home signs printed and flowers waiting for her. She thanks Ray, her daughter Rayvin, and her younger sister for being her village while she was away.
All she wants to do is take a good bath now that she is back home with her loved ones.
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Andy arrives later to sit down and interview Karen. Her son, Brandon, and cousin introduce themselves to Andy. Brandon says he isn’t camera-shy. He’s just a busy man, and that is why he doesn’t film often. Brandon handled Karen’s business while she was locked up. She’s incredibly grateful for his support.
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Karen confirms she was offered a plea deal but didn’t take it.
Andy asks Karen if she watched the body camera footage taken from the day of her DUI arrest. Producers play the footage, which shows Karen answering questions from the police while intoxicated. At one point, she refers to herself as Thomas Jefferson’s concubine.
Karen admits she didn’t watch the footage until her therapist made her. Not watching the footage is why Karen did not take her lawyer’s advice and accept the plea deal. She says she was never offered house arrest, despite reports.
The body camera footage was hard for Karen and her children to watch.
She is now sober.
“It devastated my children,” Karen says in reference to the disturbing footage.
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A traumatic experience at 19 still had a hold on Karen many years later.
Karen believes unhappiness played a role in her addiction to alcohol and pills. After she tells Andy that she doesn’t drink and drive, he tells Karen that reports claimed she had four DUIs on her record. Karen says this is not true. She had two DUIs, not four.
“Let’s be clear, it was four incidents involving alcohol. Two of them were not DUIs, and the oldest one is 20 years old,” says Karen.
She was shocked when she received the sentence she did. Karen figured she’d get no more than three months. Doing volunteer work in prison, such as leading AA classes, shortened her time there.
Karen feels that being sexually assaulted at 19 years old stunted her emotionally for a long time.
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Karen says she will be in recovery for the rest of her life.
Andy asks Karen if she can recall the last time she had a drink. She answers sometime after her arrest. When she is asked if she considers herself to be an alcoholic, Karen answers:
“I consider myself a person living in lifetime recovery. Because it’s two drugs, I don’t underestimate either.”
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Karen addresses her tension with Wendy.
Andy shows Karen some scenes of the women discussing her conviction at last season’s reunion. She says Ashley was correct. Karen frequented a particular bar twenty years ago. But she denies that there was someone else in the car with her.
She is then shown the scene of the women discussing her leaving Wendy out of her thank-you list. Karen says Wendy knows why she was not named. But she is willing to have a conversation with Wendy because their friendship is worth that much.
Wendy is the only one who didn’t call her.
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Karen thinks she’s been using alcohol and pills to cope with what happened to her when she was 19. So she’s been put in a situation where she has to learn who she is at this point in her life, and it’s been a delightful experience. She thanks Andy and the network for their continued support.
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What are your thoughts on the episode?
They really could have kept this.
I don’t think she’ll ever be real.