After the divorce, Gay relied on Billy for money, and he was reluctant to give her more than he thought she needed. To afford Botox and other expensive beauty treatments, Gay offered to do social media marketing for a local med spa. She was so successful that the owner offered her the opportunity to buy the company. Along with her friend Andrea “Dre” Robinson, Gay transformed the company into Beauty Lab + Laser, a med spa founded on principles of transparency and self-determination. She helped promote the brand with the help of her friends and future reality TV castmates Lisa Barlow and Meredith Marks. Marks was the one to initiate conversations with producers about a reality show in Salt Lake City, and introduced Gay to them as a potential cast member. Gay suggests that she and Marks pretended not to be friends on camera so as not to upset Barlow, who resented Gay. As Beauty Lab + Laser took off, Gay also pursued boudoir photography, which led her to a friendship with another future co-star, Whitney Rose.

At first, Gay dismissed her friend Lisa Barlow’s claims about her connections with TV producers. When a producer named Joey reached out to her, she assumed that it was just to help Lisa, never expecting that she would be cast.