‘Selling Sunset’ Star Bre Tiesi Still Isn’t Sure She’ll Return to the Oppenheim Group: “I Think I Need More Therapy”
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Bre Tiesi may make headlines for the comments she makes on Selling Sunset, but it’s the real estate agent’s wardrobe that turns heads on a show that’s become known for its fashion as much as its houses.
“I want to be fashionable, and we want to be fun, but I also never want to be out of character for who I am,” Tiesi says of her signature monochromatic style on Netflix’s reality TV real estate series. Admitting that she likes to be “a little extra here and there” when it comes to her clothing during filming, Tiesi adds, “What’s important to me is that I’m always on brand with who I actually am.”
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That sentiment extends to all aspects of Tiesi’s life, including motherhood (she shares son Legendary Love with partner Nick Cannon), her unwavering decision not to get married again, and her choice of whether to remain with the Oppenheim Group, which as of the finale of season seven remains up in the air after she stormed out of the opening party for the new office following a tiff with potential new O Group agent Cassandra Dawn.
“I don’t know how I feel,” Tiesi tells The Hollywood Reporter in the Q&A below. “I think I need a little more therapy and a little bit more downtime.”
Ahead of the season seven reunion streaming at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Tiesi talks with THR about her wardrobe, work-life balance and watching herself on the reality TV show.
Let’s start off with the look that you’ve said is one of your favorites this season, the black and white L’Agence blazer that you wear in your confessionals.
That’s definitely one of my favorites. As you can see, I’m a suiting type of gal. I want to be comfortable and cute, and there was just something about the two tones and the fabric and how it fit. I was like, “This fucking thing is insane.” I was just obsessed. I actually wear a lot of their suits. I feel like everything they do for women is really flattering.
Do you have a favorite designer?
L’Agence is one of them, but I would definitely say that Mugler is my favorite, but it’s a little bit more edgy and sexy, so it’s not always office-appropriate. Another one would probably be Dion Lee. Those are for more of my edgy, outside types of looks.
What is the one item you will splurge on no matter what when it comes to style?
Shoes. I love shoes. I love my designer and I’m super into designer and I love to be head to toe, but I also love a solid piece that I would also mix with a Zara top or something else to kind of give it life. I spend in weird ways. I feel like I’m not really consistent, but if I were consistent in anything, it would be expensive shoes.
Something I’ve been thinking about as I watch the show is the personal investment, not only coming into luxury real estate but being a reality TV star, because you have to look the part. Where do you even start?
When you say investment, we’re talking about, I could have bought a property, like a down payment. This show is not cheap by any means. And I think that’s good for people to know. We have stylists, so you’re not necessarily paying for these items. I don’t own every single thing that I wear. Did I pick it? Did I style it? Do I have taste? Yes, but I didn’t necessarily go and buy that $20,000 suit. I will buy staples if my stylist brings something to me and I’m like, “Yes, I need those for my closet.” A lot of looks are just based off of what’s trending and these are pieces that you don’t necessarily always want to wear again. So, it’s nice that you do have a stylist where you can give it back.
There was a lot of conversation this last season about the real estate market not being in a good place. What’s your outlook on the future of the industry?
Honestly, it’s pretty crazy. I bought my house in April of ‘22, and that was near the end of when people were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars over asking, and now a lot of them are finding that the homes don’t really have that equity or that value, and they kind of shot themselves in the foot. I haven’t been working a ton. After I got free from filming, I really dove into my family and my son and trying to find my sanity again, but these are the things I see every day. The market’s very different. Even on the renting side, there’s nothing. I’m seeing agents pick up listings they wouldn’t normally pick up, and there really isn’t any certainty. We’ve seen the market crash; we’ve seen it explode. Interest rates are very high. There are a lot of moving parts, but I would say that this isn’t going to be our best year for real estate.
Ten million dollar-plus listings are the hot commodity around the office. Other than for the higher commissions, are there any additional reasons why those are so highly coveted?
Well, there’s a few things. When you’re talking about the client itself, I feel like when you’re dealing with clients that are in a certain tax bracket, you’re usually dealing with people that are a little bit more seasoned in buying and know what they want. They’re not necessarily emotional buyers. They’re not looking for their first home to have their baby. They usually have teams. They’re usually very organized. And it just makes it a much easier transaction, which is what’s pushed me to reevaluate where I’m taking my career and the things that I’ve been doing. I want to be more on that side, leaning more toward commercial real estate and investment properties.
When the season ended, it wasn’t clear whether you were going to stay with the Oppenheim Group or leave. Have you made a decision?
I haven’t. I don’t know how I feel. I think I need a little more therapy and a little bit more downtime. I’m going to have to process that one, I think.
Did you watch all of season seven already?
This is going to make me sound awful, but I’ll say it. We don’t get to see the reunion, so I actually have no idea what’s happening for that. But we do get screeners a week before the series comes out, so we have an understanding of what’s going on and we’re prepared mentally. I fast-forward to my parts, and that’s kind of it. I’ve started to watch all of it and, I think for me, it’s like, “I lived it, I don’t know if I can handle doing this all over again.” I just want to know if I did something stupid or if I look crazy and how good my hair and makeup looks, and then I’m just going to be done. You can only take so much. I also knew I wasn’t really a part of anyone else’s drama, so it makes it easy for me to just go straight to watch mine.
As you watched, did you feel like there was anything you wish you had done differently?
I never regret anything I do, because everything I say I mean, so I’m not really somebody that’s like, “Oh, shit, I fucked up. I shouldn’t have said that.” But I think that my sense of humor and my openness is mildly offensive to the majority of people. And I think that the feedback on that is mixed, but I also don’t really care. It is what it is. I am who I am — past, future, whatever. So, I’m not necessarily embarrassed. I do think it’s funny when I start to see the narratives being created from something that I’ve said, or I didn’t actually say, but that makes better TV than what I did say. I don’t really take those things to heart. The only thing, as everyone knows, is if you fuck with my family, then you’re going to get mama bear. So that’s the only part that I was like, I don’t really know how mama bear went at the finale, let me watch that part. I kind of blacked out a little bit, but I’m not ashamed at all of what I did. I know why I did it, and I was very valid in why I was upset. If someone’s constantly berating you and attacking your character and poking and poking, it’s like, “OK, you want to keep poking me? Here she is.” That’s more of the hard part of watching that stuff because it’s not necessarily fun to watch, but I don’t regret it.
To that point of being a mama bear, it was surprising to see your son this season. Were you hesitant to have him on the show?
Yeah, as the world can see, with the narrative that’s been created of my family, I’m not necessarily jumping to bring them into anything. Yes, I signed up for this, and yes, I’m allowing the world to have a narrative because I decided to do reality TV, but I think there’s still a line of being human and a certain respect that you should have for a child. And the fact that people can be so disgusting is just kind of beyond me. So, I was like, if I can avoid that and shield him from that as long as possible, I will. It’s not that I’m hiding anything, it’s just people can’t act right. And we can see how I act when they don’t. So, I have to eliminate myself from that situation. I don’t play about mine.
It was also a bit surprising to witness people’s shock about your lack of desire to be married. Is that a response you typically receive from people outside of the reality TV world?
No, because no one would really say stuff like that to your face. I’ve been married. I’ve done that. I have the utmost respect for people that spend decades together and get married and spend forever together. I love that for you. And it’s like, I respect yours. I don’t know why you can’t respect mine. I’m in a relationship. I have a relationship. It’s just that I don’t need anything to be on paper. And even if I wasn’t with my current partner, it’s just not something that I see needs to be done at the end of the day. It’s literally a piece of paper that binds me to you financially. So, even when it comes to discussions about prenups and marriage and all those things, I actually think that they’re great because if you put a prenup in place in the beginning, that’s when you love and care about somebody and you’ll actually do right by them. In my divorce, it took two years to get divorced — longer than I was married. I’m not trying to push my opinions on anybody or my choice to not be married. I’m not asking anyone to accept it or tell young women, “Don’t get married.” If that’s what you want to do, please. I just don’t want to.
In a couple of scenes, you talked about the struggle of being a new mom and a working mom and trying to balance it all. How are you handling things now?
I feel guilty every day, all day, truly. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever been through in my life because you’re talking about the most fundamental years of creating who a person’s going to be, what their character is, their coping mechanisms, how they see things, everything. There’s nothing more important than right now. And it’s also a huge point in my career. So, I’m torn between being a boss bitch businesswoman and I brought this human to this earth, and my job is to make sure that he has everything that he needs, and me not being present isn’t doing that. I’ve been really evaluating how much I’m going to work and when I’m going to work, and I think that created this mentality that everyone has that I’m too good. Yes, I am too good, because I need to conserve my energy to make sure that I raise a good human. Yes, money is important, but not more important than my son. I may get an opportunity to have a $15 million listing, but am I really going to be available to show that listing? Am I going to be able to do X, Y and Z? Those are the things that I’m reevaluating now. I have a rule that everyone has to be out of my house by 2 or 3 p.m. when he goes down for his last nap. I don’t work in front of him. Computers don’t come out; phones don’t come out. So that way he doesn’t associate those things with me being too busy for him to come to me or ask for something. Because of the industry and everything I do, I work from home and everyone’s in my home, and it creates a little bit of a blur between work and home life for me. So, I’ve been trying to set some boundaries.
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