Britani Bateman, one of the stars of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” was in New York City earlier this month when the flurry of strange texts and calls began, she later told police.
Then she received screenshots of a comment on a Tik Tok video post that she had collaborated on. It provided her personal cellphone number with the suggestion: “there ya go. Give her a call.”
“With her phone number being leaked,” Lehi police Officer Tanner Kirkham wrote in a recent report, “she has had individuals go to her home, and she had to change her phone number.”
Bateman’s ex-husband, John Scott Pace Underwood, is now charged with unlawful electronic disclosure of personal identifying information, a class B misdemeanor, for allegedly posting the comment in early December.
But he also faces more serious charges. Underwood, 59, has been restricted from contacting Bateman under a protection order in place since June 22, 2023 — before she first appeared as a “friend” on “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” in September 2024.
He is charged with a class A misdemeanor for allegedly violating that order, and one count of stalking of a cohabitant, a third-degree felony.
Underwood “has engaged in a campaign of harassment” against Bateman, identified as “BB” and “on a reality television show,” since the protection order was issued, the charges allege.
“Acts have included following BB and staring at her from the distance allotted by the protective order,” a statement in the charging document reads, “re-routing BB’s mail from her private post office box to himself; cashing BB’s checks; going to BB’s Provo home and breaking into her electrical box, interrupting power to the house; and driving by her house in a gated community where he has no reason to be.”
Underwood “has also posted comments on her social media posts, despite being restricted from all direct or indirect contact or communication,” Kirkham said in the statement, filed Dec. 16 in 4th District Court in Utah County.
Underwood was arrested and later released on his own recognizance. He was issued a new restraining order and told to stay away from Bateman and not contact her directly or indirectly. Underwood also was ordered to give up any firearms he currently owns.
The texts Bateman received from strangers were “both kind and unpleasant,” the officer said. According to her social media, Bateman was in New York taping the Season 6 reunion show for “Real Housewives” and starring in a cabaret revue.
The allegations are a reminder, said Erin Jemison from the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition, that it’s more common for someone to be stalked by someone they know — such as a former partner — than by a stranger. (She was speaking generally, not about the charges against Underwood.)
The number of stalking reports in Utah in 2025 was nearly double the number reported in 2021, said Jemison, director of public policy for the coalition.
Sometimes it can be difficult to prosecute, Jemison said, because “often there is not concrete evidence. A victim will call and say, ‘He’s circling my house,’ and if they can’t happen to catch it on their phone by the time law enforcement gets there, they can’t show that’s what happened.”
Utah lawmakers are working with prosecutors and victim advocates on a bill for next year’s legislative session that would add a domestic-violence designation on some privacy-related crimes — such as planting tracking devices on cars, she said. With such a designation, she said, prosecutors would be able to seek stiffer penalties when they find a pattern of domestic violence.
Jemison advised people who believe they are victims of stalking to contact the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition — the 24-hour hotline is 800-897-5465 (800-897-LINK), or online at udvc.org — to get connected to groups that can help with protective orders and other services.
Domestic violence, she said, “doesn’t have to be physical abuse,” she said. “Sometimes there’s this kind of stereotype that [domestic violence is] just going to a shelter if you get punched.”