Even while he was in a treatment facility, The Valley's Jax Taylor admittedly kept an eye on estranged wife Brittany Cartwright by watching their home security cameras. In hindsight, he's still defending those actions.
"I was in a bad place, man," Jax reasoned on The Valley After Show for Season 2, Episode 9. "I was in the rehab, and I couldn’t do anything. You guys were all having a great time, and I'm stuck in this frickin' facility. All I had was my phone. Of course I'm gonna look at the cameras. Like, who wouldn't? It's part of going through this messy divorce."
Clarifying that he "could never hear" anything because he didn't want to spring for the extra $3,000 security package that included microphones and audio, Jax claimed in the above After Show clip that he hadn't done anything that Brittany wasn't also guilty of, anyway.
"When I was living at the house and she was at the Airbnb, she was staring at the cameras the whole time, too," he insisted. "How is it any different? There's no difference. She did the same exact thing."
That's when Jesse Lally argued that Brittany "was trying to catch [Jax] in an act of" bringing women back to the house, which they mutually agreed not to do, whereas he was "just kind of stalking and trying to have some sort of control."
Jax disagreed, though, and brushed off the situation, explaining, "It's not my place just to come after her anymore. I just don't care. I need to worry about myself. … I have my own s–t that I gotta fix."
Later, the dad to 4-year-old Cruz added that he and Brittany "both do a lot of things to each other," noting that "the difference is" that he "doesn't talk negatively about her in public."
Brittany Cartwright and Jax Taylor talk about keeping tabs on one another post-split
Elsewhere on the After Show, Brittany claimed her estranged husband "uncovered the cameras," which he had previously obstructed himself, while retrieving more clothing from their home during his 30-day stint in treatment.
She also claimed that Jax "acted like he saw [her] at the rental house with a guy," elaborating, "He said that he had somebody that lived right next to my rental house watching me."
Jax, for his part, fired back on the After Show that it was merely coincidental that his friends happened to be in the same places as Brittany and would text him when they saw her out. "Do I have people everywhere? No," he insisted.
As for whether Brittany had also previously used their home's cameras to keep tabs on Jax, she didn't exactly deny the accusation: "Whenever I knew that he was, like, up to something, I would, like, check to see if girls were walking [in or out] because I knew he was lying about having people at our marital home at the time."
She further reasoned, "I was still paying all the bills there. I mean, my wedding photos were everywhere. My son’s photos were everywhere. And I had already caught two girls in the house."
Why Brittany Cartwright filed to divorce Jax Taylor
Jax watching Brittany through their cameras certainly factored into her decision to officially file for divorce on the June 10 episode. The topic arose in her first meeting with a new attorney, during which she produced Jax's "rage texts" from rehab and attempted to explain how he knew when she was not at home.
Combined with what she called Jax's "blow-ups" and him not paying their mortgage, Brittany said she knew it was time to legally end their marriage. Regardless, she still had some hesitations about the "really, really hard" divorce decision, noting that her love for Jax wouldn't "disappear overnight.""He's the father of my child. We've been together for 10 years. Like, I have built a life with him, and I never in a million years thought that I would be here," Brittany explained in an Episode 9 confessional. "As much as it pains me, what's actually making me stay strong in all of this is Cruz, my son. Like, me being happy is gonna be so much better for him in the long run."
