I recently binge-watched all 5 seasons of ‘Selling Sunset’ on Netflix. The reality show shows the ups and downs of the professional and personal lives of real estate agents working at Oppenheim Group that are based in Los Angeles. It stars former actress Chrishell Stause, Christine Quinn, Heather Rae Young, and more.
When the show first aired back in 2019, many people, including fellow celebrities like Chrissy Teigen, accused the show of being fake. It was mainly because Chrishell Stause joined the show. She’s a former actress who appeared in numerous soap operas, and she was married to Justin Hartley, who starred on ‘This Is Us’, so it was rumored that she didn’t actually have her license, and that the only reason she was cast was to boost the show’s ratings. She debunked those rumors by posting a picture of her registered real estate license on her Instagram stories.
The first season of ‘Selling Sunset’ saw Chrishell Stause’s first day on the job. Everyone at the brokerage had worked there for a while, but they welcomed Chrishell with open arms nonetheless. Christine Quinn did too at the beginning, but switched gears when she saw a side of Chrishell that she didn’t like. Christine is never one to hide her true feelings towards anyone, nor is she one that is there to please anyone, so she made her feelings very much known.
Over time, all of Christine’s co-workers distanced themselves from her, and she eventually became the most hated person on the show. But here’s the thing about Christine Quinn: out of all the women on the show, she’s the most interesting and intriguing ‘character’. No matter how villainized and hated she was by her co-workers and the audience that watched the show from home, she always stayed true to herself. She never switched sides or changed her mind about anything or anyone, and she was never afraid to speak her mind no matter what it cost her; even if it meant losing her job. That’s more than I could ever say about the rest of the real estate agents working at the brokerage.
In season 4 of the show, Christine was pregnant and had her baby. Motherhood made her softer, though the other women didn’t see it that way. In the first episode, the other women were just complaining about how they only found out Christine was pregnant through her social media post announcing her pregnancy when she was already 6 months pregnant. During that period, Christine befriended then newcomer, Vanessa Villela.
Vanessa saw right through Christine’s vulnerable side, which was refreshing to see. Vanessa took her new friend to her mindset coach, and that’s where, or at least I, saw a completely different side to Christine. When the mindset coach asked her why she allowed the people around her to treat her the way that they did, Christine broke down in tears and admitted that she suffered trauma in her life. She said it was something she’d never share with anyone publicly, but did admit that it affects her as an adult.
For me personally, it was an ‘AHA’ moment while watching the show. Trauma is never an excuse for someone’s negative behavior. But it IS an explanation. The other women on the show didn’t even fully try to understand Christine’s position in their conflicts, which was a problem in itself. Christine was right about one thing all along, which is that it was all just an unnecessary drama. There were several times where all her of Christine’s co-workers gaged up on her at public settings, including Christine’s own event, and even after Christine started crying, they showed no remorse. While watching it, I felt like I was high school show.
Season 5 of ‘Selling Sunset’ saw Christine Quinn attempt to bribe her co-worker’s client so that he’d work with her instead. It was no surprise, to be honest. Before the 5th season premiered, Christine announced that she started her own brokerage with her husband. Most likely, and this is just me assuming, Christine was trying to find new clients for her new business venture.
Christine just recently released her own book. ‘How To Be a Boss B*tch’. She’s always been open about how the reality show was fake and villainized her as much as possible, even to the extent of changing the chronological order of her life events to make her storyline more interesting for the audience. It’s honestly not surprising considering ‘Selling Sunset’ is produced by Adam DiVello, the same producer behind ‘The Hills’, which is known to have been completely fake.
Since she started her book tour, Christine made even more allegations against the people behind the show, specially DiVello:
“We have to look at what Adam DiVello has done as a whole, as a human being, as the person that he is,” Quinn, 33, told host Alexandra Cooper on an episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast.
“There’s been complaints filed against him. Multiple complaints … and it’s been sick. He actually told me to go fall down the stairs and kill myself at one point.”
He was threatening me and yelling at me. There were other people around, witnesses to this,” Quinn claimed.
“He basically berated me for being too honest and I said, ‘This is my real life and this didn’t happen and you know this,’ to which then he was screaming and yelling at me.”
The real estate agent further claimed that she has lodged various complaints against him, noting that he’s also been accused of “sexual misconduct.”
“That wasn’t the first complaint I filed against him. There was another complaint to where he, to this day, cannot set foot on set with any of the women in the office because of misconduct,” she alleged.
Quinn also alleged that production bullies the cast into saying certain lines in order to create drama.
“It is a male-dominated industry in the production field to which they manipulate women. They harass them. They just mentally torture and intimidate them,” Quinn said.
“They’ll say, ‘If you say this word, if you say this sentence, we’ll let you leave.’ And so after three hours … it comes to a point where we’re just like, ‘Fine, I’ll say that, I don’t care.’ So it’s the intimation tactics.”
Despite her allegations, Christine confirmed that she’d be returning for season 6 of the show. This time, though, she won’t be an employee at the brokerage the show is centered on, but rather a founder and CEO of her own brokerage, a rival to the Oppenheim Group.
It’s easy to see Christine as the bad guy on the show, but in real life, she’s a completely different person. She’s a woman who knows what she wants and doesn’t take any bullsh*t from other people. It’s hard enough being an entrepreneur. Being a female entrepreneur is a hard on a whole other level. Being a real estate agent, especially in the Los Angeles market requires ruthlessness and realness, which Christine has. What held her back was the people that she forcefully surrounded herself with.
At the end of the day, she did the right thing. She tried her best to work with what she had. Over time, she saw that it didn’t work no matter how hard she tried, so she created something for herself that didn’t include all the drama that she became a part of. That’s a true boss b*tch move.
Sign up to our newsletter if you want to see more content from The Graceful Boon! By signing up to our newsletter, you'll get an even more in-depth content from yours truly, Stacie Kiselman, who's our Graceful Boon, that you won't want to miss out on.