If you or a loved one has been emotionally damaged by a mean girl, please read this article to cure yourself from the trauma.
As a civil engineering student, the only thing I have learned to analyze is a building, but even I can see that Chelsea is carrying so much baggage and uniformly distributing it across the entire brokerage. My analysis, purely from my academic point of view, strictly focuses on why Chelsea is a mean girl, considering her personality traits, judgements against other characters and her general conduct with the other realtors on the show and her ability to handle any difficult situations.
Selling Sunset is a popular reality TV show that focuses on a brokerage, The Oppenheim Group. Chelsea is a real estate agent in the LA Oppenheim Group, and she has qualities that I wish the buildings in my foundation class had; strong foundations. However, through the course of Season 8, she has had a few run-ins with her colleagues which led to major altercations.
Prior to starting the analysis, I figured it was important to note a few assumptions:
- I am assuming that whatever is seen on reality TV is the real-life persona of the character (i.e. it is not just for show)
- Viewers (you) may have a different opinion than what is written in this analysis, hence, this article should not be read by those who are particularly sensitive to an engineering student’s perspective on reality TV show characters.
Chelsea is not an overly complicated person, especially on the show. She is much like my first year physics problem sets, except rather than analyzing the statics of The Oppenheim Group building, I am analyzing the dynamics between Chelsea and her colleagues. Chelsea portrays herself as someone who is holier than thou and of moral high ground, when it is quite the contrary.
For example, Chelsea and Mary, another agent at the brokerage, both co-list on a property in Los Angeles. At the broker’s open, Chelsea shows up very late (which is unprofessional given that she is co-listing the property) and in an outfit that would be considered inappropriate. Her outfit essentially consisted of a blazer (which is fine) and an extremely mini skirt. Not only did Mary comment, but a few of the agents from the brokerage,as well as some of the agents visiting the listing had a few choice words to describe her outfit — probably because of the lack of structural integrity that went into making it. When she got confronted about it by Mary and their bosses, Chelsea made it out to be an issue where Mary and their bosses were attacking her as a woman rather than dressing appropriately for a broker’s open.
Moreover, just to add onto the train of unprofessionalism and complete disregard for her colleagues, during the broker’s open, Chelsea is seen leaving with Emma and Chrishel in a hot pink Jeep, and Chelsea is seen lying down on the exterior of the Jeep in a rather inappropriate position at the broker’s open. Honestly, I am not sure exactly what Chelsea thought she was supposed to be doing but it seemed like she was trying to promote F1 rather than her million dollar listing.
This has impacted her relationship with Mary throughout the show, so much so that Mary (in my opinion) has been gaslit to a point where she ends up apologizing to Chelsea for even calling her out – especially when Mary had a valid point. This is unbelievable because Chelsea is so strong minded that she literally deflected blame onto Mary so fast that even the steel beams in my capstone project could barely resist bending.
But you know what, at least Chelsea is consistent…consistently manipulative that is. For example, Bri found out that Chelsea’s husband was cheating on her and privately met up with her at a bar and told her. They had a very emotional conversation even to a point where Bri said she was not a ‘girl’s girl’, but she does not want anyone else to go through the pain of finding out from a third party (Bri’s ex-husband cheated on her). At this point, Bri never owed anything to Chelsea, as Chelsea judged Bri heavily in the previous season for her relationship with Nick Cannon, and judged Bri’s choice for being an unmarried mother in a non-monogamous relationship. After this conversation, Chelsea, while sitting with Emma and Chrishel (other agents at the brokerage and her so-called friends), questioned Bri’s intention behind telling her the news and in the process, she makes Emma and Chrishel choose sides.
I think that the consistency in Chelsea’s behaviour proves that Chelsea is in fact a mean girl as she not only questioned Bri’s source of information, but also made her friends feel forced to pick either to be Chelsea’s friend or Bri’s. At this point, Chelsea should just be a structural engineer because at least she will continuously question the integrity of a structure, only thing is, she will never check the right sources.
Through my analysis, I think that Chelsea is in fact a mean girl due to her inability to self-reflect and see that her own actions could be the cause of her downfall, not the actions of others. This could be due to her strong personality and her ego, which may not allow her to fully see the larger impact of her actions on those within the brokerage. At times, her behaviour can be seen as self-centred or egotistic by some viewers, when all she would need to do is simply mind her own business and learn that there is a time and place for everything.
In conclusion, if Chelsea ever wanted to go through major character development, she might want to hire a whole (re)construction team to help her and get some PPE (personal protective equipment), because the amount of rebuilding they would have to do is crazy, provided of course, they get the right permits on time.