There are many Real Housewives stars who have made headlines for questionable (and sometimes downright awful) reasons, and Shannon Beador knows that her DUI was not a good look for her.

However, she has also decided to speak out about her 2023 arrest, which occurred after she crashed her car in Newport Beach.

The Real Housewives of Orange County cast member is believed to have taken a selfie at the time of the crash.

She later looked back on it and was shocked by what she saw.

In a recent interview with People, Shannon opened up about her emotions seeing the photo and how the reality of what had happened to her set in.

Real Housewives Star Shannon Beador Discusses Crash Selfie

The photo of Shannon Beador, which she took after crashing her car, shows her face bloodied (she appears to be bleeding from below one eye). “That was really traumatic for me,” she told People of seeing the photo. “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 continued, “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.” Fans got a brief glimpse of the picture when Beador showed her friend and Real Housewives star Heather Dubrow the snap. This decision was not one she made without serious consideration because she knew that showing Dubrow so publicly would mean that many others would see it, too.

“It was a big step for me to take that,” she explained. “When someone Googles my name, probably for the rest of my life, that’s what they’ll see: my face, covered in blood, from the night that easily marked the lowest point of my entire life. But I wanted to be able to speak of everything that happened.”

Shannon Beador Doesn’t Want Sympathy

There will be people who feel that Shannon Beador’s actions in 2023 were careless and irresponsible, and it could have been a lot worse than her crashing into a planter box. When she was arrested, she underwent a blood alcohol test, which police recorded to be a .24 blood alcohol level, which is three times the legal limit, People reports.

Beador’s decision to share her photo and for people to see how she was hurt in the accident is not her attempt at asking for sympathy. “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 in her interview. “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.”

She also admitted that she feels she “deserved to get hurt” because of her “very stupid choice.” She recognizes that the situation, as it turned out, was much better than it could have been and the alternative is grim. “I could have killed someone,” she admits. “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.”