The drama so far on this season of Shahs of Sunset has mainly come from Mike Shouhed’s sexting scandal. Obviously, his girlfriend, Paulina Ben-Cohen, didn't like it very much, given she sent screenshots of the X-rated texts to the group chat, but neither did his co-stars on the show who resented being included in Shouhed’s lies. However, Shouhed is explaining why these days he's “really happy” everything came to light in the way that it did.
There's no other way to say it than that Mike Shouhed’s exposed sexts to another woman were pretty raunchy. The cast recited them out loud on Shahs of Sunset (courtesy of Paulina Ben-Cohen’s screenshots) and, to put it mildly, it was a lot about sexual acts and body parts. The scandal inevitably prompted mistrust with the supposed love of his life, so why would he be happy it all came out on the show? Well, Shouhed recently said on KTLA 5:
Honestly, I'm really happy that it happened because she put me in my place … But I had to go through that darkness to get to the light ... [We did] therapy. We learned how to communicate with each other. Pauline is a very private person. She bottles everything up. She doesn't talk until she finally explodes. So we are both working on communicating with each other … It caused me to really believe that I need to be happy with what I have because I really do have an amazing woman. I can't be chasing glitter when I have diamonds at home.
That's a good line, but Mike Shouhed has a notoriously bad reputation with women even before this incident. Throughout the years on Shahs of Sunset, he has in fact been caught cheating before. His behavior actually ended up being the demise of his marriage to Jessica Parido.
The recent sexting scandal, though, had a wide impact for Mike Shouhed beyond his personal relationship. Some of his Shahs of Sunset co-stars felt lied to because he initially told everyone that the texts were actually a sham, created somehow by iCloud hackers. He would later fess up to the truth, but not before it spiraled out of control, with Shouhed creating a rift between him, Golnesa “GG” Gharachedaghi (who has another feud going with a certain Real Housewife) and Reza Farahan over who was really responsible for sabotaging his relationship.
Regardless, Mike Shouhed claims that he is at least happy that his relationship with Paulina Ben-Cohen is stronger than ever. We kind of figured as much, given the two have been seen together constantly on each other's social media. But on their official status, Shouhed said:
We fixed our relationship, and now finally we're getting back to a place where everything's all good. We're actually in a better place than we ever were.
All may be well and good now for Mike Shouhed and Paulina Ben-Cohen. But in the most recent episode of Shahs of Sunset, things have still looked somewhat uncertain for them. Ben-Cohen was strangely missing from an event, prompting a lot of questions from Shouhed’s co-stars regarding whether he was purposely keeping her away or if she herself didn't want to face anyone.
We'll have to wait and see how the real journey from fraught and screaming to “happy” and content actually transpired for Mike Shouhed and his girlfriend. Tune into Shahs of Sunset tonight on Bravo at 8 p.m. ET!
