Alex Hall On Dubai, Tyler Stanaland, and Season Two of Selling The OC
Setting the record straight, the realtor-turned-reality television star sits down and answered all of our burning questions…
It’s Alex Hall’s first time in Dubai.
She’s looking relaxed and fresh-faced as we chat in her plush suit at Atlantis The Royal. The city’s newest landmark, located on the Palm Jumeirah, has just finished its grand reveal and she was one of the first guests to book a stay at the ultra-luxe resort, to experience its splendor and opulence.
From Chef Nobu opening up his biggest restaurant and beach club, Nobu by the Beach, to an invite-only concert where Beyoncé performed after a four-year hiatus, the past few days were ones for the books. Not a bad long weekend adventure for a realtor from Orange County. But Alex isn’t just any realtor.
She works for the prestigious The Oppenheim Group; take a scroll through their website and you’ll see it’s noted that she ranks within the top tier of real estate professionals in the county. She also happens to star in a little Netflix series called Selling the OC. Ring a bell?
The reality television show, which is a spin-off of Selling Sunset, follows The Oppenheim Group’s expansion into Orange County and the lives of realtors closing the million-dollar deals – drama included. Alex is part of this clan. Though she’s now a bona fide television personality that now gets recognised by fans on an international scale, she’s certainly no diva. Friendly, down-to-earth, and effortlessly confident she comes across as the girl you’d want in your gang. While there’s overlap with the Alex we see on screen – the helpful, go-getter Alex – there’s a different side to her that comes out in person, one that is very different from the picture her rivals try to paint of her on the show.
Bazaar Arabia sits down with the 33-year-old mother of two to chat about her experience at Atlantis The Royal’s opening weekend; what we can expect to see in the upcoming season of Selling The OC (which has just started filming); and the rumours about her and another cast member.
Harper’s Bazaar Arabia (HBA): Tell us about the opening of Atlantis The Royal. Did it meet your expectations?
Alex Hall (AH): The opening was sensational. I’ve never experienced anything like in my life. I don’t think I had any expectations, honestly, because that’s just kind of how I live my life… but it was probably better than anything I could have imagined. The night Beyoncé performed – and then the fireworks – in the beginning I was like “Oh, this is like Vegas.” And then the whole performance happened and I was like, “No, it’s not. We’re on Mars or something – like I don’t know what’s happening right now, but it’s amazing!”
The service here has just been impeccable – right down to the cocktails made last night, when they were placing one morsel of saffron on top of our drink with their little syringe. I’m like, “I like this lifestyle. I could get used to this.”
I would love to bring my family back here. I would love to bring my kids. I’d love to bring my mom. I feel very safe here. Everyone who lives here says “It’s just a very, very safe place” which refreshing.
HBA: How did you feel about the first season of Selling The OC? Did we see the real Alex Hall on it?
AH: Everything that you saw was me. That’s what I feel like. All of that was me, but there’s just so many more layers that didn’t get aired, unfortunately. We film for months and months and months, back-to-back days – sometimes eight-hour days – and those eight-hour days can be crunched down into a 30-second clip. Unfortunately, you don’t get to see all of the layers of the cake. Hopefully with Season Two and Three, [producer] Adam DiVello will show a little bit more of the other parts of my personality.
HBA: How did Selling The OC help you with your own career goals that were unrelated to becoming a reality television star?
AH: That’s the number one reason I did the show. I felt like the show would give me instant credibility in areas that would have taken me a lot longer to get to, or I would have had to spend a lot more money – I mean, marketing is one of my largest expenses, which is like most real estate agents. You spend thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of your career on marketing yourself. So this was a trade-off, right? You take the risk on being on a reality show. But I was always hopeful and always positive that the juice would be worth the squeeze. It’s definitely helped my career, for sure.
HBA: What’s one thing you’ve learned about yourself throughout the whole Selling The OC experience?
AH: One of my biggest takeaways from being on the show is… learning to accept who I am and hone in on my positive qualities. It’s just like with my children and how I raised them, not wanting them to care so much – I mean, in this day and age with social media and stuff like that it can be very, very cruel – and being in the limelight can be very cruel. Just making sure that you know who you are and liking yourself – and if you like yourself, nobody else’s opinion really matters. That’s one thing that I knew going in and I’ve honed – and I’ve been trying to hone in on it even more since the show came out.
HBA: How do you decide what you’re going to wear when you’re filming?
AH: Most of the mornings I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get the kids to school, making breakfast and making sure homework is done, and also trying to get dressed. It’s more so whatever looks best on my figure at the time and my weight fluctuates. I’m not so much always about what’s technically in style or what’s most fashionable. I just try to look in the mirror and say, “Okay, I feel good about myself.” And that’s when I’m going to be the best version of myself, right?
The show has definitely helped me incorporate a lot more colour into my wardrobe because I’m a pretty neutral person. Now I find myself reaching for more of the items that are colourful, which is not how I’ve been for the last 32 years of my life.
Max Mara is one of my favourites – obviously, I’m a neutral girl. So is Theory. White Fox boutique has sent me a bunch of stuff, which is something that never would have thought I would wear, but their stuff fits me really, really well. I stick with the brands that I feel fit my physique the best, not so much what’s fashionable.
HBA: What can we expect to see in Selling The OC, Season Two?
AH: I could tell you what I think… but I have no idea just because the narrative can change. On thing might happen and production will run with that, right?
I hate to say this, but I feel like there’s probably going to be more drama than there was even in the last season – because we were all just getting to know each other. I feel like people were more reserved. Now, going into Season Two, I think they kind of want to “bring it,” if you, because they want to try to show whatever they can, get more screen time, whatever. That kind of concerns me a little bit, because then it’s like loose cannons everywhere – which creates drama, right?
HBA: There are a lot of rumours about you and your Selling The OC co-star, Tyler Stanaland, being out here together in Dubai. Can you set the record straight?
AH: I’ve said it before I’ll say it again, there is no situation. Tyler and I both got invited to come out here – we didn’t even know that the other one was invited.
We were on the phone a couple of weeks ago talking about filming and I said well, “I’m going to be in Dubai. I’m missing the first week of filming.” And he’s like “Wait, you’re going to Dubai?” and I said yeah. He said, “I’m going to Dubai as well!”
Once he told me he was going, I actually felt very comforted – and then, you know, the media has to ruin everything, again with the rumours. We both have our own plus ones, we both have separate rooms, but people just constantly want to believe this narrative. We were at the Nobu beach party and he was trying to help me scope out dudes. He’s just one of my friends… trying to be my wingman. People just love drama.
Lead image supplied.
