On this week's The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Erika Jayne fully threw Tom under the bus.

She attacked his mental state and behavior, and described his previous car accident as being worse than anyone knew.

Erika has actually spoken about that accident before -- years ago, right after it happened.

At the time, her description was very different. What is the truth?

Erika Jayne told her castmates that Tom Girardi's now-infamous car accident was much worse than she had suggested.

According to her, she did not share some of these details at the time to "respect Tom's privacy."

Erika told them that Tom had been unconscious for 12 hours after the accident, and broke his clavicle, his shoulder, his ankle, and sustained a brain injury.

Erika added that she had not worried about Tom's unexplained absence at the time.

She had assumed that he was out with another woman, as there were apparently several such side pieces.

That only changed when Tom gained consciousness enough to call Erika for help.

What followed, she shared, was not the "superhuman" recovery that she had previously described of her elderly husband.

Instead, she said that she watched with horror as Tom's cognitive abilities declined before her very eyes.

In addition to memory issues and repeating himself, his personality changed, making him quick to anger -- and in total denial about his condition.

As you can see in the clip that we have included with this post, Erika gave a very different description of events shortly after the 2017 accident.

"It was fine," Erika said, minimizing the severity of the accident that "could have been so much worse."

Instead, she spoke about how the accident reminded her of how fragile life is, and how she could end up alone one day.

Erika did at least say that this was the first time that she had seen Tom as "not superhuman."

He was, she described, in a lot of pain -- pain that he was reluctant to acknowledge.

His broken ankle -- the only injury that she described at the time -- had been fitted with pins so that it would heal correctly.

Erika gave similar statements in the first half of 2018 while discussing Tom's accident.

She told Michael Rapaport that Tom as "Perfectly healed; he's great. He's good."

She spoke to noted plague enthusiast Jenny McCarthy, saying "He healed up so well he broke the pins, so he's good."

It is certainly both possible and completely understandable that Erika might not have wanted to share everything a few years ago.

At the time, there was no reason to share this information and nothing to be gained from it.

A lot of people praise a loved ones recovery or bravery while privately having a different experience. This is especially true with cognitive decline.

However, it cannot be a surprise to Erika that this is being used against her in the court of public opinion.

When you give two versions of an event to a large number of people, some are going to believe you one time or the other.

And some of your audience -- in this case, made up of millions of viewers -- is going to decide that you're a liar and disbelieve anything that you say.