'Selling Sunset:' 60+ facts as the reality show returns

‘Selling Sunset:’ 60+ facts as the reality show returns

Time Stamp: May 19, 2023 5:38 PM
Source Node: 2668059

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Selling Sunset’s Season 6 dropped on Netflix Friday, and there are some massive cast shakeups this season. After the finale and first-time-ever Selling Sunset reunion, we were left with more questions than ever.

Would Maya Vander leave for her own brokerage? Did Christine Quinn still work at The Oppenheim Group? Was Vanessa Villela coming back? Who would fill the empty desks if they did leave? Would mid-season new girl Chelsea Lazkani officially get her own desk? 

In the past few months, some questions have been answered. But also, there’s a wealth of fun facts, fascinating friends and family, and fabulous fashion on this real estate reality TV fave. 

Below, we’ll get into all the things you should know as you catch up on the newest season, which came out early Friday morning (let’s not pretend Real Tea is the only one watching). Season 7 has already been shot, a cast member confirmed this week, so stay tuned for more.

Maya Vander

Christine Quinn

  • After some controversy over whether Christine Quinn offered another agent’s client $5,000 not to work with them, casually “joking” about various castmates sleeping with the boss (but true that Jason Oppenheim has publicly dated several officemates, more on that later) for listings and other questionable behavior, Jason Oppenheim confirmed at the reunion that there wasn’t ‘a place for her’ at the brokerage anymore. Quinn’s absence from the reunion was heard by all. 
  • One of the reasons Christine decided to exit the show was to focus on her new work with her husband Christian Dumontet on the crypto real estate business RealOpen, she told Just Jared. 
  • Quinn’s book, How to Be a Boss B*tch, was released earlier in May. The part how-to, part manifesto aims to help women “own their power” in business and relationships to live more authentically.

Vanessa Villela

  • Vanessa Villela was the new girl and somewhat struggling newby on Seasons 4 and 5 of Selling Sunset, but the Mexican-American actress started her professional career in Mexico City in roles on TV shows, including El Señor de los Cielos and Una Maid en Manhattan.
  • Villela met her now husband Nick Hardy (who’s a photographer and creative director of Lascivious, a UK-based lingerie brand) on Raya during COVID-19. 
  • The couple had a “magical and cinematic” wedding at San Diego’s Fairmont Grand Del Mar on Sept. 3, 2022, People reported. 
  • Villela started her real estate career in 2020 at The Agency and was with the brokerage for about a year before moving on to The Oppenheim Group and Selling Sunset.
  • On May 16 (yes, the week her former show launches), The Agency announced Villela is back at The Agency. And with a $25.8 million co-listing with Santiago Arana, who you’d recognize from Buying Beverly Hills. (Did The Agency just ring the bell … ?)

Enter: New blood

With a vacuum left from the absence of the three cast members above, there’s room in the office for new agents.

“I don’t think I’ll really miss Christine. So it’s probably for the best that she’s gone. But I am nervous about the new dynamic,” The Oppenheim Group’s Vice President Mary Fitzgerald says in the Season 6 trailer.

“I don’t think the O Group is ready for me.” – Bre Tiesi

Bre Tiesi

  • Born and raised in Calabasas, California, Tiesi has grown up in “the industry,” after falling into modeling at a young age, she’s also been in TV (WAGS, Love & Listings, Wild ’n Out) and film. 
  • Tiesi has some high-profile relationships. In 2018, Tiesi married football player Johnny Manziel, but they separated in 2019.
  • In Season 6, Tiesi describes her relationship with Nick Cannon as an open relationship. You might know Nick Cannon from Wild ‘n Out, Drumline, hosting various competitions on TV, his ex Mariah Carey, and having 12 children with six different women since 2011. They had a son, Legendary Love, together 11 months ago.
  • At age 31, she decided to pursue a longer-term career and switched gears to real estate. She previously held her license with Keller Williams Beverly Hills, but didn’t actively use her license, she told Inman. She has been with The O Group for about a year and has two seasons of Selling Sunset shot (though we won’t see Season 7 for a while). 
  • Tiesi told Inman that she’d actually been approached to be on the show in an earlier season, but the timing wasn’t right. 
  • This proud Mompreneur also has her own YouTube channel and a 12-week fitness program that is available on her website, Body by Bre.

Inman sat down with Bre Tiesi to get the Real Tea on her first season, who she is (and isn’t) friends with, and what she’d say to her haters. Read the full article here.

Nicole Young

  • The other newbie is fresh to the cast, not the brokerage. In fact, Nicole Young has been with The Oppenheim Group since 2014, according to her LinkedIn. 
  • “I have $100 million in sales and counting. If someone were to get in the way of that, there’s going to be an issue,” Young says. (And by the looks of it, Chrishelle Strause and Young have some beef pretty early on.)
  • She dated Jason Oppenheim. Cast member Amanza Smith dished to Us Weekly in August 2022, “[Nicole] dated Jason [10 years ago]—she was the first.” Young has been married to Brandon Young since 2017.
  • But there’s no bad blood between her and one of Jason Oppenheim’s in-office other exes Mary Fitzgerald. In fact, in the Season 2 finale, Young performed the wedding ceremony between Fitzgerald and Romain Bonnet.

Heather Rae El Moussa and Tarek El Moussa 

  • After getting engaged in 2020, Heather Rae married HGTV’s Tarek El Moussa at the end of Season 5 in a gorgeous on-screen wedding ceremony. 
  • You probably know Tarek El Moussa from the many HGTV shows he’s done, including Flipping 101 and Flip or Flop or his cameos on Selling Sunset or the pages of Inman. He used to contribute in 2015. 
  • On their wedding day, Rae added the El Moussa to her name and legally became step-mom to Tarek’s son Brayden James, age 7, and daughter Taylor Reese, age 12, a role Rae fiercely protected well before the wedding. Tarek’s children are with ex-wife and fellow HGTV star Christina Meursinge Hall (née Haack, formerly El Moussa and Anstead), of Flip or Flop, Christina on the Coast, Christina in the Country fame. 
  • In 2020, Tarek El Moussa launched The Agentcy, a team with eXp Realty based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which snapped up a 50-agent indie shortly after launch.
  • The Flipping El Moussas dropped in 2023. Similar to Tarek and Christina in format, the Heather Rae El Moussa and Tarek El Moussa buy and flip homes for profit (but the dynamic is cuter, more newlywed). 
  • After fertility issues, a journey through which the couple chronicled publicly in the press and on their social media, they welcomed baby Tristan in February. On Season 6 Heather Rae El Moussa finishes up her pregnancy. The couple told ET in May that there are still embryos on ice, so a sibling for Tristan isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
  • It sounds like Heather Rae El Moussa isn’t returning for Season 7. A cast member confirmed this week that 7 has wrapped filming. Considering that filming lasts about 12 weeks, and in March, Rae El Moussa told E! News that she had initially not started filming because she was on maternity leave, but was ready to get back to work and hadn’t heard anything about filming.

Chrishelle Strause

  • Before getting her real estate license in 2016, Chrishelle Strause was an actress in TV shows like All My Children, Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless.
  • Once upon a time, Chrishell was engaged to Glee’s Matthew Morrison — the pair dated in 2006, and after about a year, made their promises to tie the knot. By December 2007, however, the pair split. Morrison later told Cosmopolitan in his heart, it “wasn’t right.”
  • For two years, Strause was also married to This Is Us star Justin Hartley who, according to Strause (and as chronicled on the show in Season 3, Episode 6), let her know about their divorce via text message. “I found out because he texted me that we were filed. Forty-five minutes later, the world knew,” Strause said about the news-breaking TMZ article.
  • In Season 5 of Selling Sunset, Strause and Jason Oppenheim started (and finished) dating. Ultimately, Jason Oppenheim doesn’t want to have kids, which was a deal-breaker for Strause.
  • The reunion was full of tears on both ends of the relationship. But also, Strause announced that she’d found a new love. Non-binary Australian musician G Flip and Strause were settling into a new relationship, after meeting while filming a music video in which Strause acted.
  • The week before Season 6 launched, Stause and G Flip married in a small ceremony in Las Vegas. Stause’s pearlescent white gown by Gemeli Power fell to the floor, and she carried a bouquet of white roses, while G Flip wore a suit by Melbourne designer E Nolan.

Amanza Smith

  • Amanza Smith goes way back with the twins. She introduced Mary Fitzgerald to Jason Oppenheim. 
  • Smith was married to NFL player Ralph Brown from 2010 to 2012. In 2019, her ex Brown dropped the kids off for school one day “and never came back,” according to Smith. 
  • As a single mother, Smith cleaned houses, walked dogs, worked retail and babysat to make ends meet.
  • In December 2022, Smith went public via an interview with Mr. Warburton Magazine about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child from her stepfather and step-grandfather.
  • Health issues show up on Season 6. During a conversation with Mary Fitzgerald, Smith reveals that she’s undergoing further testing after her doctors noticed something during a scan of her uterus. “There’s a wide array of things that it could be, and then the one thing that we pray and hope that it’s not,” Smith told Fitzgerald.

Chelsea Lazkani

  • Chelsea Lazkani had beef with the new girl as soon as she found out Bre Tiesi has an “open relationship” and a child with Nick Cannon. In the Season 6 trailer, we hear last season’s newcomer Lazkani say, “As a Christian, I find Bre’s relationship rather off-putting.” To which Tiesi later claps back, “Who I have children with is my business. I don’t need a judge and jury.”
  • Lazkani is originally from Britain and graduated from the University of Buckingham with a degree in economics.
  • Before joining The Oppenheim Group, Lazkani had a nearly three-year stint with Rodeo Realty.
  • Lazkani also has a master’s degree in international oil and gas management from University of Dundee in Scotland.

Emma Hernan

  • Thirty-one-year-old Emma Hernan joined the Selling Sunset cast in Season 4. 
  • According to the Season 5 storyline, Chistine Quinn called one of Hernan’s clients and offered him $5,000 not to work with Hernan. This was one part of the fray in Quinn’s relationship with The Oppenheim Group. 
  • But that wasn’t their first beef.
  • Hernan and Quinn had big-time beef over Quinn’s ex cheating with Hernan, which Hernan says is untrue because she didn’t start seeing Quinn’s ex until their relationship was over.
  • In Season 5, Hernan and property developer Micah McDonald have a steamy hot tub date after closing the deal (or before?), with promises of more deals in the future. 
  • Hernan is a great swimmer. In Season 5, Hernan says she took up swimming at age six and was soo good at the backstroke, she qualified for the Olympics, though some people doubt these claims due to the lack of receipts. But she gave it all up at 16 to become a model, PopBuzz reports. 
  • Hernan is the CEO of a plant-based food company, Emma Leigh & Co, known for its empanadas.

Mary Fitzgerald

  • Mary Fitzgerald stepped into more of a managerial role at The O Group during Season 5, and in Season 6, Jason Oppenheim actually steps away from the office for the first time, leaving Fitzgerald to further take charge. 
  • Husband Romain Bonnet used to be a pastry chef.
  • Fitzgerald has a 26-year-old son named Austin Babbitt from one of her previous relationships. That makes him just three years younger than Bonnet.
  • Fitzgerald recently opened up about a septic miscarriage she suffered following her and Romain’s honeymoon in Bali. “The reason why I’m speaking out now is because I do realize how common this is and how many people go through this, and it is not easy,” the star said on Instagram. “I needed a minute because there are so many eyes on me and everyone judges and everything, and it has been rough to say the least, but there’s still hope.”

Jason and Brett Oppenheim

  • Jason Oppenheim practiced law for about four years before getting into real estate, working at O’Melveny & Meyers LLP in Los Angeles and representing clients in major cases like the Enron Corp. criminal trial of the early 2000s.
  • Bret was a lawyer too. “As a former securities litigation attorney at two of the world’s largest international law firms, Skadden, Arps LLP and Latham & Watkins LLP, Brett spent years defending a consortium of investment banks against liability in excess of ten billion dollars stemming from the MCI/WorldCom corporate bond default,” Bret Oppenheim’s bio reads.
  • Jason has dated several of his agents, including Nicole Young, Mary Fitzgerald and Chrishelle Strause. He also has been linked to several models, including current girlfriend, German model and brand influencer Marie-Lou Nuerk, who cameos on Season 6.

“There’s no fixing Compass. It’s unfixable,” Jason Oppenheim told Inman’s Real Tea back in November 2022. Read the full interview here.

Cameos to look for

  • Jason’s girlfriend, Marie-Lou Nuerk, Legend Love, and celeb clients like Heather and Terry Dubrow (of Real Housewives of Orange County and Botched fame respectively, and celebrities unnamed thus far.  

Fashion

  • The cast members actually arrange — and pay for — all their own hair, makeup and designer wardrobe
  • We’re going to state the obvious here, but the fashion on the Selling Sunset franchises is next-level, to the point of controversy. Selling the OC’s Gio Helou told Inman that his styling is much less involved because people don’t care as much about what the guys on the show wear, compared to the girls. “And rightfully so. But even for me it is extremely time-consuming because people expect you to present yourself a certain way on these shows, and it’s part of the fun, but geez, I see what my female castmates go through, and it’s a lot. I mean, they have to bring three or four wardrobe options to set every time we film just in case, they’re clashing with each other or something like that. And that’s a full-time job just in and of itself.
  • Many have stylists and thank god for that! Both Gio Helou and Bre Tiesi shared with Inman their gratitude for their stylists who keep them looking fierce, professional and on-trend. 

More

(L to R) Kofi Nartey, Mary Fitzgerald, Jason Oppenheim

In 2022, Jason Oppenheim and Mary Fitzgerald spoke with Kofi Nartey at Inman Connect Las Vegas about how agents could tackle the shifting market, by using slower periods to do things like dial in on marketing, find an assistant or more effectively delegate tasks among staff.

Email Inman or follow Dani Vanderboegh on Instagram for more Real Tea

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