'Real Housewives Of Salt Lake City': Whitney Rose's Husband Justin Rose Is Being Sued For Running Pyramid Scheme
He's being sued for running a pyramid scheme.
Bravo Bravo is preparing to help us all through the winter doldrums with a new Real Housewives franchise, and judging from last night's series premiere of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, fans are certainly in for a drama-filled treat.
One of the cast members, Whitney Rose, got fans interested when she confessed that she had an affair with her husband while he was her boss. That was 10 years ago, and they are still going strong.
But her husband has some baggage of his own, including a lawsuit against the company he works for.
He gets paid big bucks to run a direct sales company that sells supplements, but they're in court over claims that the whole operation is a big pyramid scheme.
Who is Whitney Rose's husband, Justin Rose?
Read on to find out everything you need to know about Justin Rose.
How did Whitney and Justin Rose meet?
A decade ago, both of the Roses worked at NuSkin, a direct sales company. Justin was the president of the whole company and Whitney was a sales team account executive.
Both of them were married at the time and he actually has three kids from his previous marriage.
The two of them fell in love and had an affair that led them each to leave their previous marriage and start a new life together.
They got married when Whitney learned she was pregnant.
Whitney and Justin Rose are both former Mormons.
Whitney refers to herself as a descendant of Mormon royalty, which she doesn't explain in her official bio.
But the affair with her boss — Justin — ended her relationship to the church.
She doesn't say whether Justin also walked away from the Church of Latter Day Saints when they got together, but it seems like a safe guess that if he had also been a Mormon, he left the religion at the same time as his new wife.
In trailers, Whitney says that leaving the church was a big deal in her life and she says people around her have had trouble accepting some of her more progressive aspects.
In her social media, she has made posts supportive of LGBTQ rights and Black Lives Matter.
The Rose family in 2020.
What does Justin Rose do for a living?
When we say he is in direct sales, we don't mean he's sending his friends invitations to LuLaRoe parties.
He's actually an executive who has worked at the top of various direct sale companies for decades.
In addition to NuSkin, where he met Whitney, he has worked for Shaklee and Melaluca.
He is currently the chief sales officer for a company called LifeVantage that sells a line of dietary supplements.
Like all direct sales companies, LifeVantage relies on individuals to sell products and recruit additional sellers into the "downline" to expand the reach of the company.
We don't know what the direct sellers earn from working there but Rose is reportedly paid over a million dollars per year in salary and bonuses.
The Justin Rose LifeVantage lawsuit, explained:
In 2018, LifeVantage was the subject of a class-action lawsuit alleging that the company is an illegal pyramid scheme.
Rose, along with other executives at the company, was named in the suit as a defendant.
The case is still ongoing and a judge recently dismissed all but one of the claims against the company for lack of evidence but allowed the part of it being a pyramid scheme to move forward.
What the suit alleges is that the company is structured so that recruiting other sellers is the only way to make money; simply selling products isn't a way to earn income and many sellers actually lose money.
That's against the law for direct sales companies. They have to make it possible for sellers to earn money just from product sales in order to be operating legally.
Justin Rose is into motorcycles.
The Rose family seems to have a work-hard, play-hard mentality, and Justin posts a lot of photos of travel and outdoor activities.
He and Whitney both seem to enjoy motorcycles and she recently added some Instagram photos of herself posing with bikes, dressed in super-sexy biker gear.
The tags of the photos were from the 2020 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally that took place last month in South Dakota.
Whitney Rose at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
Who are Whitney and Justin Rose's kids?
Together, Whitey and Justin have two kids, Bobbi and Brooks, who are 9 and 6 respectively. J
ustin has three kids from his earlier marriage and they are all a lot older: Cash is 27, McCade is 24 and Trey is 21.
The family seems close, if social media is any guide, and they all spend time together as a big blended family.
They just became grandparents.
Justin Rose's middle child, McCade, got married in October of 2020. His wife has two children from a previous relationship, which technically makes Whitney and Justin grandparents now.
"Congratulations to McCade and Fe Rose! So awesome to see this family tie the knot last night!! This officially makes me and @whitneywildrose Grandparents!!!!" he wrote in an Instagram post.
When does The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City air?
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City airs on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on Bravo.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.