The Real Housewives of Orange County star Shannon Storms Beador is reflecting on the “really traumatic” experience of finding a bloody selfie taken after her DUI arrest last year.
The 60-year-old reality star said she was “shocked” when she discovered the photo in her camera roll after the incident. She can also be seen showing her costar Heather Dubrow the image in a preview clip for the series’ upcoming season.
“As you can see, I was injured pretty badly and when I looked at it, it almost felt like I was looking at someone who wasn’t me,” she told PEOPLE. “I didn’t want to see myself that way, and I didn’t want anyone else to see me that way either. I honestly thought I’d never show it to anyone.”
Shannon Storms Beador on ‘The Real Housewives of Orange County’. BRAVO
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Storms Beador was arrested on Sept. 17 after she crashed her vehicle into a Newport Beach house’s planter box, PEOPLE reported. She was later sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to complete 40 hours of community service and a nine-month alcohol program.
She noted that it was a “big step” for her to share the photo with the world knowing that it would be attached to her forever but that she wanted to be transparent about what happened that night.
“I’m not asking for sympathy, and I’m not saying, ‘Oh, feel sorry for me, look at that blood.’ I’m not,” she said. “But I think when you see that picture, you’re like, ‘Oh, wow, this was bad.’ And showing it was the only way anyone would understand that.”
Shannon Storms Beador on ‘The Real Housewives of Orange County’. BRAVO
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While she is glad that no one was injured, Storms Beador said, “Oh, I deserved to get hurt,” adding that she’d “made a very stupid choice” getting behind the wheel.
“I could have killed someone,” she said. “And part of my therapy has been trying to move past that guilt and shame. You say to yourself, ‘I could have killed someone… but I didn’t.’ So I don’t want it to appear that I’m taking any of this lightly, because there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it. But I didn’t hurt someone, and I’m grateful for that.”
Storms Beador is using the incident as a way to define what she called “the beginning of a new chapter of my life.”
The Real Housewives of Orange County airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.