Sean Palmieri is setting the record straight when it comes to his Selling The OC co-star Austin Victoria and Tyler Stanaland
After a week of the series season 3 spinoff of Selling Sunset, fans have sounded off when it comes to the drama that ensued.
And now, Palmieri is speaking out to ET to share his side of the story on what really happened.
The star opted out of an all-cast press day held before the season debut but is now speaking out.
“It was a choice that was recommended to me,” he explains of not participating in the group interviews.
“I would have came,” Sean adds. “I think that if I was there, I would have really shut it down, immediately; but I think it’s really good to let people speak what they want to say, and then I will come back with the facts.”
Fans saw a lot of the season 3 drama surrounded the friendship of Sean, Austin and Tyler, with accusations of open-marriages being thrown around and more.
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“I actually, during season 2, cut off the majority of the cast,” Sean explains. “There were a lot of things taking place, especially during season 1 and afterwards, that the actions, the things that I saw that were happening — a lot of strange things that you saw, divorces took place — there was a lot of conniving going on. I quickly started to realize, after sitting back and analyzing, I just thought that these are not really good friends, and these are not the type of people that I like having in my surrounding.”
“[Polly Brindle] was a good example of a friend that, I start off friends with her, and then I saw on and off-camera, the negativity, the attacking,” he continues. “Pitting against people and saying rumors and certain things that are not true? You just start to see people’s true colors once they are on a TV show.”
Sean pointed to cast member Polly to the one potentially starting the rumor on screen regarding edibles from Austin and his wife Lisa.
In episode 3, Polly sat down with Alex Hall at one of the Oppenheim Group’s listings and said, “Recently, he told me Lisa and Austin invited him ’round to their house. Lisa made him weed cookies, he felt really weird, and then Lisa and Austin were insinuating that they wanted him to engage in a threesome.”
“I feel like Polly came up with this rumor,” Sean says. “I asked about this since the day I heard it, in the scene where I’m talking with [Ali Harper and Kayla Cardona].”
Sean’s even admits that a scene with realtors Ali and Kayla was odd as if the cast members were set up by production to ask questions regarding Austin and Lisa’s relationship and a rumor going around the office.
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“Polly and I weren’t friends,” he reiterates. “Quickly after season 1, we’re not speaking, and then she’s saying I recently told her something about Austin and Lisa, when we have not been speaking?”
“Polly, if I recently made up this rumor, how come you didn’t bring it up season 2?” he asks. “You and I have not spoken. We are no longer friends.”
Sitting down with ET, Polly believed that Sean invented the rumor to get more time on camera.
“She’s the one who [wanted] screen time,” he clapped back against the accusation. “I was fighting the entire time, trying to not have this on camera, and she made up a lie, caused a whole circus and turns in into a freak-show. That’s what Polly does.”
Sean admitted that at one point he confided in Polly about Austin when they were friends, but she allegedly twisted the information and lied.
“I saw how quickly she became very spiteful,” he says, “and she became really malicious.”
Sean went on to claim that the only thing he ever said about Austin and Lisa on camera was that he got a flirty vibe from them, and it turned him off being around them.
He also says details about the night in question have been misconstrued, sharing text messages with ET that establish a timeline. He never went over to Austin and Lisa’s for dinner; instead, he shared sushi with Austin at a place near Austin’s house, then went back to the house briefly to play video games on a VR headset Austin had recently purchased. After leaving, Sean sent Austin a text, which Austin shared on Instagram as part of a lengthy carousel to defend himself in the conversation surrounding the season. The message reads, “You guys are so fun. Let’s hang out more! Thanks for having me over.”
“This rumor about being drugged, lured into a bedroom, marijuana cookies? That never happened,” he declares. “All I heard throughout filming is, there is a rumor and I was like, what is this rumor?”
“I never even brought this up to camera,” he makes clear. “I never even brought it to production.”
Sean believed the details of this made up scenario came from Polly and Kayla from the cast.
“These are the two women who have been desperate since season 1 to go get out of the heat they caused,” he snaps. “They are a part of destroying a marriage, they’re a part of a lot of altercations in the office.”
“I never, ever spoke to Kayla and ever mentioned anything about edibles or weed cookies,” he says. “What’s missing from the season finale is, I confront the entire office and the entire cast when I hear about some edible cookie.”
He event says he was never offered a cookie by Austin and Lisa. the only thing Lisa gave him was an almond milk recipe.
“I say, ‘Who on Earth took an already serious situation I am dealing with and made up this rumor?'” he recalls. “‘This never happened.’ Kayla denied it. Polly denied it. Every single person said, ‘It wasn’t me…’ to the point where I looked at the cameras and I was really mad, ’cause I was like,’ Production, did you make this up?'”
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Sean even noticed that cast members Poll and Alex Hall were being ‘nice’ toward their fellow realtor Kayla toward the end of the season despite the large amount of tension between the parties in the past.
“I noticed that Polly and Alex Hall are being really nice to her towards the finale, and I think this was a situation where Kayla just felt like she could just say and do whatever just to get herself out of the fire,” he says. “She disappeared after the finale. [Alexandra Jarvis] called me saying she is trying to ask her what is going on and Kayla is not answering. Kayla just disappears, and I think that is what happens a lot in this industry and these shows.”
Sean also shared a text with ET, which shows him reaching out to Austin to get clarity. Austin says he’ll call back shortly, but Sean says the call never came. Sean’s calls to Austin went unanswered, too. Instead, they connected in the office, on camera, for a headline-making confrontation.
“I want screen time?” Sean bursts out. “I go to the office, he brings it up in front of the entire office — with 50 camera crew around! I immediately walk away and say, ‘I’m not doing this right now.’ As I’m walking away, I’m trying to talk to him in private. He doesn’t want to talk in private, he wants to bring it to the screen. So, if you are so desperate to not get your family involved, your wife involved, your kids involved, why are you bringing it on screen, Austin? For everyone to talk about, when I confronted you multiple times and said, ‘This needs to be a private conversation?’ What are you doing?”
“He brought it to the TV multiple times,” he points out. “He wants to bring it in front of an entire office, an entire camera crew. I walk away. He throws a fit. So, at this point, I’m like, there’s no other choice.”
Austin has continued to deny the allegations against him, even denying the comments from Sean and rumors that went around the office about him.
“It’s all a lie,” Austin told ET. “I’m a family man. I have kids. I’m not into that; never was, never will be.”
“I was referencing everything that Austin’s told me in the past,” Sean doubles down of the cryptic exchange. “There was a lot of things that Austin has done that made me really uncomfortable, and when I was talking to the camera, everything I said to his face, was facts. Those were the facts.”
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“I think Austin thought I was an easy target,” he surmises. “I usually keep it classy, I keep it chill. Then he quickly saw in the office, if he wanted to go there, that I was not the one or the two.”
Tyler claims he also pulled away from Sean’s friendship after he noticed strange habits from his friend when it came to his own friendship with Austin.
Austin confided in Gio Helou that Sean appeared controlling over Tyler and flipped out when he found out Tyler and Austin were door-knocking (going around town and attempting to convince home owners to sell) together. Sean says, the opposite happened.
“What really happened is, Tyler did not want me working with Austin and I have receipts on that,” Sean says. “There was a situation where me and Tyler started off [door-knocking], but Austin and I wanted to hit a different area.”
“Tyler was really upset,” Sean recalls. “Tyler didn’t want Austin involved. … So I said, ‘At the end of the day, you guys, let’s just do what we started: Tyler, I’ll finish with what we have…’ … [and] I said, ‘Why would I wanna split my commission, if I get a listing, three ways and then give a huge chunk to [Jason Oppenheim] on top of that?”
Sean even admitted that he was humiliated by Tyler on his career path during the season as well.
“It took me a few months to get my license as we were filming,” he shares. “I just moved from L.A. to Orange County. Tyler has been over and helped quiz me for my exam. He damn well knows my background.”
“I’m thinking that Tyler’s running around, putting poison in my name when I’m doing nothing but just speaking the facts,” he says. He maintains that he found Tyler to be “controlling” in their friendship, and confirms he felt as if Tyler was romantically interested in him. Tyler brushed off any playful exchanges between them as nothing more than that: playful.
“I called him out on so many things, and [he and the rest of the cast] started to attack my character,” Sean throws out. “Tyler is a man who literally humiliated his now-ex-wife in front of the entire world and has done so many horrible things … yet you wanna talk about my character?”
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Castmember Kayla also made bold claims saying she was not able to ever see his phone when Sean showed texts to the office regarding his dynamic with Austin and Tyler.
“Do you know what Kayla was doing when I gave her my phone?” he asks. “She was taking certain screenshots from someone’s ex-wife and other things and sending them to herself, and I caught her. I said, ‘You just lost the privilege to go through my phone. You’re not supposed to be sending stuff to yourself.'”
“She’s very sneaky,” he claims, saying he feared handing his phone over at the season finale, suspecting Kayla and/or Polly may attempt to rid it of his receipts.
Kayla and Sean have not spoken sine the events of the season finale.
“Me and Jarvis are very close. I had her scroll through everything,” he says, a story Jarvis backed up when she sat down with the cast. She was the only member of the ensemble to jump in and defend Sean in his absence.
Sean decided to part ways with the Oppenheim Group after filming season 3. Tyler and Jarvis have also left the brokerage.
Sean now works out of San Diego, on Steve Games’ team at Coldwell Banker West.
