Selling Sunset’s Emma Hernan Isn’t Sure She’ll Return After Being ‘Blindsided’ by That Rumor

Emma Hernan joined the cast of Selling Sunset in its fourth season, hoping, she says, to inspire young women with her success as both a business owner and a Realtor. Instead, she immediately became the target of former cast member Christine Quinn’s ire. Quinn would eventually have to leave the show after allegedly trying to bribe Hernan’s real-estate clients away from her with actual money (something, viewers learned, their employer the O Group frowns upon heavily). Since then, Hernan has imbued the show with a certified golden retriever energy that’s served as a welcome source of comic relief while also being a completely serious purveyor of vegan empanadas.

That is, until season eight put her in a very uncomfortable position. Just a day before receiving her advanced screeners for the show — one week before the episodes were released to the entire world — Hernan learned that cast member Nicole Young had said on-camera that Hernan was having an affair with a married man. Hernan and many other cast members have come forward to refute this, but the rumor’s existence is a major source of frustration for the businesswoman, whose reality-TV career is just one of her many ventures: She just launched a new line of non-vegan empanadas to be sold in stores across the country.

The shock of the accusation was still fresh when she spoke to us about it, but though she made her displeasure with the production quite clear, she was still very much Emma: offering theories on why Nicole did this, her take on the Bre and Chelsea feud, and whether she can ever return to a show that caused her so much pain.

On the show, you’re a little chaotic, throwing empanadas off balconies and stealing Ferraris. What inspires these moves?
First of all, the empanada thing, everyone thought it was hilarious. They tried to make it a little bit more serious on the show, but literally everyone thought it was the funniest thing ever. I don’t think I threw that many off, anyways. But I think that you have to keep life interesting. I like to enjoy life, and I like people around me to have fun. I love making people smile.

This season, Nicole tries to spread a rumor about who you’re dating, which we never see you find out about, and we don’t see any of your dating life outside of the moment where it seems like you’re being coy about the bite mark on your arm. Do you have complicated feelings about sharing your private life?
No, I filmed this season with the person that I was actually seeing at that time. It was something that I was hesitant to do, and I was very private about my life for so long, but I feel like I really opened up. I don’t know why that didn’t make the show, but I filmed numerous scenes with the person I was seeing. I was vulnerable. That wasn’t easy for me, but I still did it because I thought that it would be good for the audience to see what I’m up to and who’s trying to date me and my back-and-forth thought process behind it.

And then the bite mark, that was from the person that I was seeing. I was kind of pretending, like, “We don’t know who it is.” And it’s like, “No, everybody knows.” I didn’t really understand it, and I don’t know the thought process behind the producers who made that decision. I want to be open. I want people to relate to me. Whether it works out or not, and you never know what’s going to happen, I’d rather show it. I guess it was a better story line to not tell me what was going on behind my back, and that’s why that happened.

What do you have to say about that rumor Nicole tried to get going that you’re dating a married man?
I mean, Nicole is a sick individual. I’m going to be super-candid. There’s zero truth to that rumor. I know what she’s referring to. First off, it was in 2021 that I showed this person properties and then they actually asked to invest in my empanada company. I said “no,” and nothing happened. When I say nothing happened, I never touched this man, never kissed this man, never held hands with this man. I was completely blindsided by this whole situation, and I mean backstabbed by everyone involved, everyone that knew anything about this, because it’s completely slander, it’s defamation, it’s all of the things.

This wasn’t even a gray area where, like, “Oh, okay. I kind of was talking to and seeing someone that was separated or in the middle of the divorce.” It was like, this person reached out to me, he was getting divorced, and he sent me the fact that he was legally separated and asked to look at a property. I know there might’ve been a crush there, but there was nothing, not one single thing that transpired. That’s why it was so disheartening to see what Nicole said.

On top of that, her source called me when all of this came out and was like, “Emma, I just want you to know, I don’t know why Nicole is saying this. I never said that it was an affair. I have no idea why she would do that.” Mary, Jason, Brett, everyone was calling me and being like, “We feel so bad. We have your back 100 percent. Whatever you need us to do. We know nothing like this happened.”

Do you have any theories about why she would bring this to camera?
This was her only story line. The only headlines and the only airtime that Nicole gets is by attacking other women. She came for Chrishell the first season, and that’s the only reason that she got cast. And then now I guess it was my turn. That’s fine, but at least let me have a voice. Production didn’t give me a voice. I didn’t know any of this was going on. Imagine the show’s about to come out; I find out about this the day before I get the screeners.

So you don’t even know how she got the idea to make up this rumor?
Her source basically said a comment to Mary, her, and Amanza, just saying something like, “Oh, the wife was jealous.” Something about him using me as a Realtor. I don’t even know if they knew that he asked to invest in my food business, but they obviously knew the wife was jealous, and the source was friends with the wife, but her source knew nothing happened and said that to her clear as day. I have the text message; I’ve seen the proof. On February 14 she said that, and Nicole still took it upon herself to film the entire season pretending like she didn’t get that text.

I just recently started opening up and going on dates this past year, which, again, I filmed for the show. But for the past eight years, the only person that I was seeing was my ex, Peter, that I was engaged to. The one that me and Christine had a little brawl about. So when I say there’s zero truth to this — it’s so crazy that this was even allowed.

Chelsea said during her Instagram Live that you called her to let her know that Bre was bringing what she’d heard about her husband’s affair to camera. Why did you feel you had to do that?
Bre promised myself and Chelsea that she would never bring to camera because it’s such … Chelsea has two little kids. It’s sad. Sometimes you can work through things in private, and Chelsea wasn’t given that opportunity. It was one of those things where it’s like, fine, Chelsea came for Bre’s family a little bit. If Bre wanted to come for Chelsea’s and she was upfront and honest about it, then it would’ve been like, okay, fair game. But Bre told us that she would never bring this to camera. So then when we got wind that she did, it was a stab in the back to Chelsea because at that point, they were not besties, they weren’t super-close friends, but we had all hung out.

We went to Halloween together. This was off-camera, but they actually had a heart-to-heart when they had the conversation on the phone and Bre said she wasn’t going to bring this to camera. And then we obviously found out that she had said to production, “Bring Amanda on. She has tea about Chelsea’s husband.” And that’s not okay.

Would you want a reunion?
Look, there’s mixed emotions on that. I want a reunion because I want all the facts out. I wasn’t given the opportunity to clear up my situation, let alone the Bre and Chelsea situation of it all. So when it comes to clearing things up, I think a reunion would be really good because the viewers would get so many answers, and the viewers really do want answers about all this because there’s a lot going on. But then there’s the other side where I can’t believe what has transpired and what has happened, and I’m all set with that type of situation.

[Editor’s note: Since this interview was conducted, it’s been confirmed there will be no season eight reunion.]

Are you so fed up with the way this went down that you’re just done with the show, or are you open to coming back?
I have mixed emotions on that right now. I just found out about this about a week ago and then the world just found out about it this past Friday, and now I’m getting the heat of it all now. So I’m kind of in the middle of it. But I definitely don’t agree with how things transpired. So it’s something that I really need to think about because I didn’t come on the show to show that people can talk about you and you cannot have a voice, and people can make up lies and get a platform to do this.