Selling Sunset is in a fragile place right now. The last two seasons of the Netflix reality show about glamorous realtors in Los Angeles were, quite frankly, abysmal. Season 5, in particular, featured scenes that felt brazenly scripted (who can forget Jason Oppenheim conducting a phone call with his camera app?), poorly cast newbies, and an annoying fixation on the show’s main antagonist (and the only one putting in work on this show!), Christine Quinn.
Now that our beloved villainess has left real estate to become a generic fashion person on Instagram, the remaining cast members have to prove that they can entertain us without Quinn granting them free storylines. In the first episode of Season 6, these women are already pulling out all the stops, invoking one of the biggest pop stars in the world, Harry Styles.
Well, Harry’s house, to be more precise.
By nature of the Oppenheim Group’s illustrious clientele, the Selling Sunset women are known to name-drop a few major celebrities here and there—if they don’t appear on the show in-person. With just two seasons under her belt, realtor and empanada manufacturer Emma Hernan is already the worst offender (complimentary).
In Season 5, she claimed that Ben Affleck reached out to her on Raya before his reunion with Jennifer Lopez. And in Season 4, she mentioned that one of her clients, a billionaire from Singapore, was purchasing Styles’ former West Hollywood home, leading to a debate over the meaning of his hit song “Watermelon Sugar.”
This season, Styles’ 4,400-square-foot, new-century modern mansion is on the market again. And Hernan is giving Netflix subscribers an inside look at the overwhelmingly beige—and surprisingly modest, for an A-lister—residence he used to call home. More importantly, though, she opens up a flimsy investigation into some of Styles’ abandoned possessions.
When co-star Chrishell Stause asks Hernan if the Grammy winner left anything behind when her client first bought the house, she replies, “He left, like, hundreds of pairs of shoes—like, heels.” Stause asks to see the stash, but Hernan tells her that the shoes are now gone and that she didn’t know the size of them. Still, a few questions about these shoes linger.
Mainly, which one of Styles’ former lovers does this shoe collection belong to? I’ve already ruled out the possibility that these could be his despite his gender-bending attire. In public, at least, he seems to stick to men’s footwear. I’m also guessing he wouldn’t leave his own belongings behind like a pile of garbage.
Styles owned the house from 2016 to 2019, so we have a few options. At the beginning of 2016, he was reportedly dating Kendall Jenner, who probably owns a bunch of shoes and can afford to leave hundreds behind. In 2017, The Sun reported that he was dating a food blogger named Tess Ward, who seems like somewhat of a fashion girlie, based on her Instagram. He was also in a relationship with model Camilla Rowe from 2017 to 2018.
If I had to make an educated guess, I would assume the leftover shoes belonged to Rowe, given the alleged seriousness of their relationship. (She’s supposedly the inspiration behind some of the tracks on Fine Line). I’m also curious if Styles is simply the type of wealthy man who collects expensive items to give to women. Specifically, I’m thinking of that interview where Drake revealed that he collects Birkins to give to his future wife. But it would obviously be a waste of money to assume your forever woman’s shoe size—and then leave the footwear behind.
Styles’ dating life aside, is it not totally rude to leave the new occupant of your home with hundreds of shoes to dispose of? Yes, the new buyer was a billionaire, who could presumably make the shoes go away with the snap of his finger. But isn’t it a bad look that a typically charitable celebrity didn’t have an assistant drop these off at a Salvation Army?
Leaving just the shoes behind—although there’s no way that was the only thing he disposed of—feels like a statement, a flex almost. Maybe this was some sort of elaborate plan for Hernan to discuss it on the show and then have a bunch of writers, like myself, pick up the story—the messaging being, if you weren’t already aware at this point, that Styles is a ladies’ man.
