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Million Dollar Beach House is the latest reality show focused on a drama-filled team of real estate agents, which is currently making its way up the Netflix TV charts. As with any of these modern glossy real-life soap operas, fans have found themselves questioning exactly how real this reality is. This is especially true after some of the events of its sister show Selling Sunset have left some viewers skeptical about how true to life the show is.
As with all of these shows, however, the question of how real Million Dollar Beach House is or is not is a complicated one. The cast are all real brokers working in The Hamptons, for example, but the Nest Seekers International team we see is just a fraction of their employees in real life. As the company's CEO Eddie Shapiro told Variety: "There were a number in the beginning who ran for the hills after the cameras were involved."
This means that Million Dollar Beach House places itself in the reality TV tradition created by The Osbournes, which was a documentary-of-sorts of the life of the family, but a very selective one that never showed us Ozzy and Sharon's third child, Aimee.
As for the storylines within the Netflix show, it is unclear how much is completely real, how much is heightened versions of reality and what is completely fabricated. Is it a weird coincidence that both Selling Sunset and Million Dollar Beach House begin with a new woman joining the staff (Chrishell Stause in SS, Peggy Zabakolas in MDBH), or is this carefully planned?
From interviews with Zabakolas, it seems that some of the filming was almost too real. Asked by Oprah Mag how real the drama was, she said: "Oh, a hundred percent. Everything was very authentic."
Speaking about the infamous fight she had with Noel on the yacht, meanwhile, the realtor said: "I walked into the boat happy and excited and thinking that we're all going to be jolly and friends. It felt like an ambush. I had thought certain things were dropped, but I guess they weren't."
This is in contrast to Selling Sunset, whose cast member Christine Quinn has admitted in multiple interviews is partly staged. Speaking to Nylon, for example, she said: "There were a lot of fed lines...[in Season 1] They tell you to do and say things and we didn't know to say no."
This seems to suggest that Selling Sunset is staged, and it feels likely that the same kind of producer trickery goes on on MDBH—even if that show's cast does not have a pathological truth-teller like Quinn to confirm it.
Another comment from Christine serves to highlight one of the more problematic elements of the reality of MDBH. She said of Selling Sunset that: "Davina and I both really got read to filth in the editing room."
The editing of Million Dollar Beach House has also been controversial. When the show first dropped on Netflix, many wrote on social media and in articles about how uncomfortable they felt about how Noel, the show's sole Black cast member, had been given a "villain edit."
In Cosmo, for example, one writer said: "It seems odd that the show would choose to pit its one Black cast member against the only woman in the firm, and a white woman at that. In a summer full of Karens...it feels so incredibly icky to watch Noel have to duke it out with Peggy over a $30 million house, while cast members like Michael and J.B. get off relatively unscathed."
Million Dollar Beach House is streaming now on Netflix.
