The Big Picture Jonathan Walton’s podcast, “Queen of the Con,” explores his personal experience with a con artist known as The Irish Heiress who scammed him out of a large sum of money. The podcast has gained popularity and is now in its fourth season, focusing on Jen Shah from The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, who is currently serving a prison sentence for a telemarketing scheme targeting vulnerable victims. Walton believes that con artists like Shah manipulate their victims by appealing to their emotions and creating drama, ultimately using these tactics to deceive and scam. He emphasizes the importance of being cautious and skeptical in order to avoid falling victim to such schemes.
Johnathan Walton has firsthand insight into the devastation a con artist can cause. His experience led him to share his story in a podcast he aptly named Queen of the Con: The Irish Heiress. In a recent interview with Collider, he’s sharing a little about how he was impacted personally: “Queen of the Con started three years ago with my story of the con woman who scammed me out of close to a hundred thousand dollars, The Irish Heiress. She was this new neighbor who moved into my life, moved into my apartment building, and I had no idea, in actuality, she was an international con artist on the run from authorities,” she told us.

He premiered his story by way of a new podcast on iHeartRadio, and it was a quick hit, leading iHeartRadio to ask Johnathan for a new season. “[The Irish Heiress] was Season 1 Queen of the Con, and I had no idea there would be a Season 2 or a Season 3,” he explained of the reception to the show.

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Jen Shah Is the “Unreal Housewife”
Image via Bravo

Johnathan’s podcast, Queen of the Con, is now on Season 4, and this season is focused on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City snowflake holder, Jen Shah, who is currently serving her six-and-a-half-year sentence in prison for a telemarketing scheme that specifically took advantage of the elderly and other unsuspecting victims.

Shah is a dynamite force on RHOSLC, inspiring fear and love among the rest of the cast. On the show, she is easy to empathize with despite her outlandish behavior. Fans saw her struggles dealing with the death of her father and the troubles in her own marriage. In-season viewers were privy to the shocking moment of her arrest, and while some series fans delighted in her misfortune, others did not. They felt for her, hearing her pleas of innocence during the Season 2 reunion.

Shah’s name was in headlines everywhere, which attracted Johnathan’s attention when planning for Season 4. “Jen Shah kind of drew me to Jen Shah’s story… iHeartRadio wanted Season 4, and we were trying to figure out who the con artists would be, and lo and behold, Jen Shah, the Real Housewife of Salt Lake City, was capturing headlines with this federal indictment for running this complex telemarketing scheme that built thousands of victims out of millions of dollars,” he said.

Did Jen Shah Dupe ‘RHOSLC’ Fans?
Image via Bravo

Shah is a fan favorite on RHOSLC because of her big personality and relatability. She shared her pain openly, which is exactly why people tune in to the franchise series. Her openness feels incredibly genuine, but Johnathan Walton asserts that it’s all a facade.

“Con artists don’t outsmart you. Con artists out feel you. They get you,” he said firmly. “They get into your emotions and your heart. You’re no longer making decisions, at that point, with your brain, and you’re much more likely to be scammed when that happens. The other red flags that are in a lot of con stories, especially Jen Shah? Drama, drama, drama. Listen, bad things happen to people all the time. But every bad thing doesn’t happen to one person at the same time unless they’re a con artist trying to snow you with their drama.”

Shah certainly came with the drama before her arrest in 2022, and the facade she presented is only the tip of the iceberg, as Walton explains. “On the surface, she doesn’t seem like a con artist. She has businesses and she, you know, she calls herself the Wizard of Oz, thinking that that’ll make you believe that she’s this magical person. But if you’ve actually seen the Judy Garland movie, The Wizard of Oz, you know that by the end of it, the Wizard of Oz is a con man. Like nothing. It was all smoke and mirrors. He didn’t have any magic. He was just some guy who got displaced in a tornado. So it’s like, yeah, she is the Wizard of Oz. She’s a con woman,” he said.

To get the full tea on the real Jen Shah, tune in to Queen of the Con. Episodes one and two are available now.