She met her future husband, venture capitalist Russell Armstrong, at a local restaurant in Beverly Hills while waiting to be seated.

Armstrong first appeared in the public spotlight in 2010, as part of the cast of the Bravo reality television series The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

The next month, her estranged abusive husband died by suicide; she found his body on August 15, 2011, dead from an apparent hanging, at a home he rented on Mulholland Drive following their separation.

[12] In 2019, a screen-capture of Armstrong on the second season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was used in an Internet meme called "woman yelling at a cat".

The meme depicts an upset Armstrong during a heated discussion about her husband's alleged abuse juxtaposed with a photograph of a cat named Smudge.