Kriti Mehrotra
While it’s pretty easy to recognize the Umansky family from ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills‘ thanks to socialite Kyle Richards, we actually see them in a new light in ‘Buying Beverly Hills.’ After all, this Netflix original revolves around her husband Mauricio Umansky’s incredible real estate empire as the agents within navigate growth on both a personal as well as a professional level. Just imagine the ‘Selling’ franchise but a lot more familial while still maintaining a sense of fierceness — so now, if you wish to learn more about its authenticity, in particular, we’ve got you covered.
Is Buying Beverly Hills Real or Fake?
From the moment the concept of ‘Buying Beverly Hills’ with The Agency brokerage first came into the public eye back around early summer 2022, it has been billed as an unscripted occu-soap. In other words, it is a reality series wherein the cast tries to find a proper balance between every aspect of their lives to ultimately thrive in the high-stakes world of luxury Los Angeles real estate. There are thus no pre-penned circumstances, dialogues, or sentiments relayed to the agents to deliberately make them any different than who they are in front of the cameras for our entertainment.
However, the entire narrative of this production is quite susceptible to minor modifications through back-end interference to make the final result as captivating, engaging, and fun as possible. This truly isn’t surprising considering the extensive resources (time, money, energy, skills) invested in ensuring its long-term, overall success; plus, it also holds for several other similar shows. With that said, producers don’t likely concoct anything from the ground up; they merely nudge the cast to pursue particular topics of conversation at particular points to naturally spark some intrigue.
This push may come during group settings in real-time while filming, or it could be during the one-on-one confessionals, yet the fact the essence behind the words remains genuine is undeniable. The best examples of this are the exchanges concerning the affinity between the boss’ daughter Alexis and Joey Ben-Zvi, as well as the poaching talk between Mauricio Umansky and Ben Belack. That’s because the former could’ve already been touched upon years ago since the duo first felt their attraction back then, whereas the latter could’ve easily been handled over a call considering there were no deep-rooted hard feelings, so they probably were urged for the cameras.
Then there’s the post-production process, but that’s honestly completely unavoidable as it’s the only way producers can effectively bring together a flow amid different scenes from different days. This element is hence 100% in the hands of those behind the scenes, meaning they can cut, edit, and play with the cast’s accounts in any way they deem fit to fulfill their goal of having a constant pull for the audience.
Nevertheless, despite the nudging, the doctored portrayals, and the editing — it’s all just manipulation, not manufacturing — it appears as if ‘Buying Beverly Hills’ is as unscripted, real, and natural as it can be. Though, we should mention you should always take any and every reality series with a grain of salt because you never really know the true extent of producer interference or engineering.
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