The mystery may have been solved.
The “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star Heather Gay claimed during Tuesday’s Season 4 finale that Jen Shah gave her the mysterious black eye that she woke up with after a wild night of partying in Season 3.
She made the revelation while confronting newcomer Monica Garcia about her behavior and alleged involvement with the Instagram account Reality Von Tease, which targets members of the show — particularly Shah.
“I don’t think you understand something about this group,” she told Garcia as Lisa Barlow, Meredith Marks and Whitney Rose watched the drama unfold.
“Listen to me: There’s something that you missed out on. We are friends, and we have been through this bulls—t before with Jen. For years, we were afraid.”
She continued, “We’d wake up sick that a lie would be posted and told and spread and exposed and exploited, but we were in it with her.”
“And we are the type of girls that ride or die, and each one of us, at different times, rode hard and we shut down feelings of doubt and things that didn’t f—king add up.”
“And the pain that we went through and the way that we were tormented and tortured? I ate s—t every day for her,” Gay recalled.
“I felt like I had to lie to protect her. I did whatever it took. I went on a book tour and defended her and took s—t for the fact that she gave me a black eye.”
Marks and Barlow, who were clearly shocked by Gay’s revelation, then audibly gasped.
Garcia, however, sounded unimpressed.
“I’m glad you finally told the truth for once. So, good for you,” she quipped before leaving the gathering at Gay’s request.
Despite being locked up at Bryan Federal Prison Camp in Texas for her involvement in a telemarketing fraud scheme, Shah quickly denied Gay’s accusation on her Instagram Story.
“Bravo, if I punched Heather in her eye, you guys would have footage to prove it,” the 50-year-old reality star wrote.
“It’s clear the show can’t live without me since I was brought up at the beginning, middle and end of season 4.”
She went on to claim that Bravo executive producer and host Andy Cohen “is still butt hurt” that she turned down his request for a one-on-one interview with her.
“Why would you sit down with someone who ‘gave’ another cast member a black eye?” Shah argued. “Next story.”
A rep for Shah confirmed to Pvnew that she did indeed share the statement on her Instagram and claimed Shed Media, a division of Warner Bros. Unscripted & Alternative Television, is “retaliating” against her because she declined the interview with Cohen last year.
Gay, 49, previously claimed she had no idea how she wound up with the black eye that was so bad she couldn’t open it.
However, her story about the injury has changed several times since she first showed it to Shah and Marks, 52, after a night out in San Diego.
Although she first claimed she had no clue how she ended up with the shiner, she later told Rose, 37, that she was waiting for the culprit to come forward.
“I think we all know what happened, I just think we don’t want to talk about it,” she stated.
However, during the Season 3 reunion, she claimed ignorance once more.
“I don’t know what happened. … I cannot speak to anything other than I walked to my room and I blacked out and I woke up with a black eye,” she recalled.
