RHOSLC's Brooks Marks Inserts Himself in Jen Shah Discourse, Then Has Mommy Walk it Back

The golden rule of any Housewives franchise is that the adults on the show are not allowed to talk about the children of their castmates. However, if the child is an adult who appears on the show multiple times and even gets solo interviews on episodes, then that rule can fly right out the window. Such is the case of Brooks Marks, a 21-year-old tracksuit designer and the son of Meredith Marks, one of the main cast members of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Brooks was an instant hit on the show with his catty responses, perfect skin, and dedication to inserting himself into his mother’s personal life. Naturally, things went south quickly when Brooks chose to, as my mother would say, write a check with his mouth that his body couldn’t cash.

In an early episode of the debut season of Salt Lake City, Brooks started a minuscule beef with Jen Shah, through his mother of course because he is a “child” and not an actual castmate. The issue was, allegedly, that Brooks was made incredibly uncomfortable by seeing Shah’s vagina on a day she visited the Brooks household and threw her legs up for .5 seconds in some sort of comedic gesture. Brooks ran to his mom to complain about it and for some reason this became a thing online.

Shah and Brooks were locked in a passive-aggressive Twitter feud that was fueled largely by fans taking sides. At the reunion, Meredith resurrected this feud by saying Shah was “liking” tweets that were saying mean things about her son, which Shah refuted. This of course was a lie because as we now know, Shah is sus. Things seemed to die down after the reunion and life carried on.

But then Shah was arrested and charged with fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Naturally, everyone had thoughts about this but Brooks decided to do the thing he (and his mother) had accused Shah of doing previously: being passive-aggressive online. According to Page Six, Brooks posted a video of himself lipsyncing to the song “MAMA” by rappers 6ix9ine, Kanye West, and Nicki Minaj. Wearing his signature Brooks Marks tracksuit—the one Jen Shah mocked during THAT fashion show—Brooks lip-synced the Minaj lyric, “She threw dirt on my name, ended up at her own burial.”

Interesting choice.

Shah, who visited her hairdresser immediately after being “unarrested,” made no comment about the apparent dig but Meredith stepped into her son’s defense after fans made the very obvious conclusion that Brooks was shading Shah. Meredith wrote on her Instagram story, “Not sure what you are all interpreting here but there are no hidden meanings on his posts. He is simply lip-syncing to one of his favorite artists. Take it at face value rather than reading into it.” Girl. Please.

Shade is shade is shade is shade. Whether it requires a critical reading or if it’s as basic as picking a specific line to lip-sync two days after someone you don’t like is arrested. Now, I understand a mother’s natural instinct to protect her child at all costs but at the end of the day, Brooks is a big boy and if he wants to be shady that is his business. But he can’t throw it out there if he’s not ready for what’s going to come back to him and Meredith defending him not only undercuts this very good shade-throwing, it’s also infantilizing a 21-year-old man who chose of his own volition to appear on the show and participate in the drama. We all said what we said! Or lip-synced!