The Real Housewives of Miami just got a major shake-up, and her name is Stephanie Shojaee.
Making her debut in Season 7, the newcomer is already making waves, especially with fellow Housewife Alexia Nepola. In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Shojaee didn’t hold back about the emotional roller coaster she’s been riding since joining the Bravo franchise.
“One day, I was loving it and I thought, ‘This was a great decision,’” Shojaee shared. “The next day, I was like, ‘This was a horrible decision. I should have listened to my friends and not done this.’” Turns out, even for someone used to high stakes in Miami’s luxury real estate world, reality TV can hit differently.
One of the biggest bumps on her journey? Her rocky relationship with Alexia Nepola.
“It was really tough. I was like, we’re never going to understand each other,” Shojaee confessed, referring to her early interactions with Nepola. While fans got a taste of their tension in the Season 7 trailer, Shojaee warned viewers: “That’s nothing. Wait ’til the trip. It gets really bad.”
So what exactly sparked the feud? According to Shojaee, it comes down to clashing personalities and egos. “She’s a queen, I’m a queen,” she explained. “I just feel like I don’t have to tell people I’m a queen. So when I’m with a queen that has to tell everybody they’re the queen, it irks me the wrong way.”
Add in two strong-willed women with opinions to match, and things were bound to boil over. “Sometimes there just isn’t room for two of us in the same room if it’s not a large enough room,” she added with a laugh.
Still, it’s not all drama and daggers. Shojaee revealed that she and Nepola eventually worked things out and today, they’re “really close.” Chalk it up to the Housewives effect: enemies one week, brunch buddies the next.
Interestingly, Shojaee didn’t come into RHOM as a total reality rookie. She once filmed a real estate pilot that never aired, but this was a whole new beast. Even more surprising? She’d never actually watched The Real Housewives of Miami before signing on.
Despite her inexperience, she had no shortage of Bravo-world mentors. Larsa Pippen a longtime friend gave her a not-so-subtle nudge. “Larsa threatened to kill me if I didn’t do it,” Shojaee joked.
Meanwhile, Real Housewives of Dubai star Caroline Stanbury initially tried to talk her out of it. “She said, ‘You absolutely don’t need this. This is just crazy,’” Shojaee remembered. But a few days later, Stanbury changed her tune, admitting, “‘Maybe you should do it, because you’ll regret it if you don’t.’”
Even RHOBH icon Lisa Rinna had her moment of influence. At first, Rinna warned her to stay far away from the Housewives circus. But that changed fast. “After 15 minutes, she was like, ‘Oh my god, girl, you’re crazy… You’re meant for TV. You need to do this.’”
With this kind of star-studded support (and a personality that’s already lighting up screens), Shojaee is proving she belongs in the Bravo universe. Buckle up, Miami it looks like we’ve got a new queen in town. And this one doesn’t need to say it out loud.
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