Gretchen Rossi is dishing her thoughts on The Real Housewives of Orange County this August. The former Bravo star was one of the show’s early cast members. When it comes to why she left, she simply says she’s “not that girl.” Gretchen reveals a grueling work schedule she used to follow as well as delving into her “ability to make grown men cry” as host Kayla Cardona breaks down on her own podcast.
The Real Housewives of Orange County is in full effect this August. Tamra Judge, Heather Dubrow, and Shannon Storms Beador are long-running cast members back for season 18. More OGs are making guest appearances this season including Vicki Gunvalson. But, Gretchen doesn’t seem too keen on the franchise, telling Kayla: “You have to become another person to survive in that world. Because you have to be vicious to some degree, you have to be willing to say and do anything to keep your job, and I just wasn’t. I’m not that girl.”
Photo by Steven Lawton/FilmMagic
Gretchen Rossi ‘worked 70-80 hours a week’
Selling The OC‘s Kayla Cardona welcomes Gretchen Rossi onto her Pain to Power podcast this summer.
When Kayla isn’t appearing as a Netflix show cast member, the reality TV star is taking to the airwaves. This August, she and Gretchen talk “false narratives,” and much more.
Speaking on Kayla’s podcast, Gretchen explains how she doesn’t think her career was given any air time on RHOC. She tells of how she was born to “entrepreneurial parents.”
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The business mind was obviously there from the get-go given her mom and dad’s work ethic but Gretchen put in her own hard graft to get where she is today.
She studied and got a degree in psychology but didn’t continue and pursue that career.
She tells Kayla that 9/11 happened when she was 22 and she was “traumatized, as was the rest of the world.”
Gretchen decided to embark on her bucket list and one of her aspirations was to get a real estate license.
The former RHOC star “gave real estate a go” and said she used to “drive around in a little Honda Accord” that she was “so proud of.”
Gretchen said she “kept being told ‘no’, but kept turning up to the office.”
“I did it, I started as a 22-year-old girl,” she said of how she’d rock up in her Honda and sell $20 million houses.
“I worked my butt off. I really worked close to 70 to 80 hours a week. I got in with one of the top real estate agents in town. Six years later, I was in the top seven per cent internationally for Coldwell Banker.”
The Bravo star continues: “The show never showed this and never showed that I was a successful real estate agent who made my own money.”
Gretchen adds more of her achievements including buying her own home for “just under a million dollars at the age of 26.”
‘I make grown men cry’
Before Kayla and Gretchen really get into the podcast episode, Kayla reveals how she recently had an “encounter with God.”
She tells the story for the first time on her podcast and explains how in a dream: “God took her back to when her son was six years old.”
Kayla breaks down in tears as she tells Gretchen how she missed her son’s “first walk, first word,” and more because, as a single mom, she had to work.
The Selling the OC star says: “I was holding onto a lot of guilt,” before crying and telling Gretchen “I had to let it go.”
Gretchen explains how she “loves” the fact the Netflix star opens up: “Now, I’m going to start crying. I love this story so much for you. That is exactly what he does. I don’t mean to make people cry, I just ask questions and they end up saying something and they’re sharing something. Before they know it they’re like ‘And then I went to jail and then I did this’ and I like make grown men cry all the time, it’s so funny.”