Um, so an Owning Manhattan cast member has said they aren’t even real agents?!

So, a cast member on new Netflix property show Owning Manhattan has made a pretty bold claim: He says the agents aren’t even real! Jonathan Nørmølle has claimed a lot of things on the show are orchestrated, including that the cast of “real estate agents” were just brought in for the show.

Owning Manhattan is all about real estate mogul Ryan Serhant and his brokerage Serhant, original I know, that he set up in 2020. It sells luxury property all across the Manhattan area of New York.

Spoiler if you haven’t finished the show, but in an interview, Jonathan has claimed he “orchestrated getting fired by Ryan Serhant” in a bid to get out of his contract at the company. His firing is shown in dramatic scenes at the end of the Netflix show, and is said to have been after he was caught bad-mouthing a colleague on the company’s podcast, and tarnishing the reputation of the business at the showing of a $10million property.

However speaking to The Daily Mail, Jonathan has said this was all planned, and just casually dropped that the real estate agents on Owning Manhattan aren’t real, either! He alleges the agency is full of people who auditioned and were brought in just for the show.

via Netflix

He explained: “I had a plan because I was under contract with Ryan and all the sponsorships. The only way I could get out of those contracts was if I got Ryan mad enough for him to fire me.” The report also claims Netflix spent a whole year casting the agents for Owning Manhattan – agents that Jonathan has claimed are not genuine.

Jonathan said he didn’t himself audition, but was actually “begged” by Ryan to come on board. “Ryan reached out to me twice,’ he said. “I said no, twice. Every time he called there was a little more incentive.” He has also claimed Ryan has tried to get him back, since the firing.

Ryan told The Daily Mail: “I have a one strike policy for toxicity and negativity. There are no bad apples. What you see me go through on the show, is while that term is easy to say, it’s hard to put in practice. Selling real estate in New York City is a super competitive environment. There are 80,000 agents here for 6,000 homes that get sold.

“Most of the people who are in this business are working for free with no benefits and with a lot of pressure on them. They will make no money this year. Sometimes you’ll see some bad behaviour, and my gut instinct is it’s a one strike policy, you can’t work here anymore.”

Owning Manhattan is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

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