After *that* messy season, here are the biggest Selling Sunset controversies of all time
Some of these are actually unbelievable
After the mess that was season nine, it almost feels like Selling Sunset has outgrown the real estate show label and become its own chaotic cinematic universe.
Between off-camera lawsuits, on-camera bribery claims, reunion disasters and endless accusations of fakery, the O Group has had nearly as much drama in the press as it has inside the office.
Here is a refresher on the biggest controversies that have defined the series across all seasons, from Christine’s villain era to Netflix’s reunion chaos.
Christine Quinn’s alleged client bribe
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The most infamous scandal still belongs to Christine Quinn.
In season five, Emma Hernan claimed Christine tried to bribe her client with seventy-five thousand dollars to ditch Emma and work with her instead, a storyline that ended with Christine skipping the reunion and never returning to the show. Entertainment Tonight reported how co-stars even said the alleged move could have had legal consequences if it were true.
Christine has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and later told multiple outlets the bribery plot was “completely fabricated” by producers after they learned she intended to leave the Oppenheim Group and start her own brokerage reported The Tab.
Her departure cemented her as the show’s original super-villain and set the tone for people side-eyeing just how real the storylines actually are.
Alanna Gold’s claims about Pioneertown
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In Season eight, newcomer Alanna Gold declared that she and her husband owned Pioneertown, a historic Old West-style town in San Bernardino County.
Residents took major issue with that claim, pointing out the town is actually privately owned by over 100 independent parties and that Alanna’s stake was a small minority interest (under 1 %) of the total acreage.
She publicly apologised, saying she “certainly does not own Pioneertown” and regretted making the statement, per Screen Rant.
‘Is the show fake?’ Real estate license accusations
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Pretty much since season one, people inside LA real estate circles have accused Selling Sunset of being staged or exaggerated, questioning whether the agents truly sell those huge listings off camera.
In 2020, one LA realtor publicly called the show “fake,” saying they had never seen most of the cast around town, per HELLO!.
That chatter escalated when Chrissy Teigen and others asked online if any of these women actually worked in real estate, and Million Dollar Listing star Josh Flagg later joked that he only watches “licensed real estate brokers” while shading the cast, reported The Things.
Jason Oppenheim and Heather Rae El Moussa pushed back, pointing to their licenses and sales records, but the question of how much is authentic business versus made-for-TV drama has never really gone away.
Emma Hernan’s alleged affair
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Another big one came along in season eight.
Nicole Young brought a rumour onscreen that Emma Hernan had had relations with a married man, a claim Emma later fully denied, calling it slander, saying there was zero truth to it, per Capital FM.
The fallout was significant, Emma said she was blindsided, co-stars like Chrishell Stause threatened to quit over it, and it fed into major backlash about the production’s handling of cast member reputations.
Workplace favouritism and HR nightmare behaviour
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Another long-running controversy is the office culture itself. Early seasons leaned into the fact that Mary had dated Jason, while Davina and others complained on camera that Mary got listings “thrown her way” because of their history.
Combined with the constant boozy parties, bikini broker’s opens and personal arguments at the office, critics, like VICE, have questioned how professional the O Group environment really is.
The show has also spent multiple seasons on storylines that would send a normal HR department into a meltdown, from coworkers dissecting each other’s fertility journeys to on-camera screaming matches about marriages, religion and parenting choices.
Off-camera lawsuits and legal drama
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For a show about million-dollar homes, it is no surprise that some of the biggest scandals involve lawyers.
In 2023, Jason Oppenheim and the brokerage were sued by a buyer who claimed issues were not properly disclosed in a five-million-dollar mansion sale. The complaint alleged fraud, per The Independent.
Jason has denied wrongdoing, and the case is still playing out, but it added a real-world cloud over the glossy listings.
More recently, Bre Tiesi has been hit with a twelve-million-dollar lawsuit from former employees, who accuse her of harassment, discrimination and wrongful termination in connection with her separate business ventures.
The claims do not directly involve the O Group, but the headlines landed while she was on the show, making Bre one of the most controversial later-season additions.
Bre denies all allegations of wrongdoing in the lawsuit, according to court documents. Her lawyer has argued that she did not allow harassment, and exercised “reasonable care to correct promptly any alleged harassing, discriminatory or retaliatory behaviour.”
Reunion chaos and Chrishell being ‘done’
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Even the reunions have turned into scandals. After season eight, Netflix scrapped a reunion altogether amid reports of a cast mutiny, with sources saying the group was unhappy about how conflicts were being handled and did not want to participate under those conditions, per Variety.
Season nine swung hard in the opposite direction, delivering a brutal reunion that saw Chrishell on the defensive for most of the special and longtime agent, Nicole, effectively fired after *that* blow-up with her.
In the days after, Chrishell said she was done with Selling Sunset, calling out the way producers set up confrontations. It capped off what many viewers considered the messiest season yet and proved that, years in, the show is still finding new ways to implode on and off camera.
Reality Shrine reached out to Netflix for comment. For all the latest reality TV cast member news, scandals, gossip and updates – like Reality Shrine on Facebook.